


Sand in the Sahara

by orphan_account



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Bliv - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Falling In Love, Forbidden Love, Hate to Love, Human Blaine DeBeers, Hurt/Comfort, Love/Hate, Psychological Drama, Romance, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 03:04:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9364523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Apparently, a Romero escaped from the bloodbath of a party at Max Rager's HQ, and apparently that's why the world is in the shabby state that it's in. Liv hasn't seen Major, Peyton, Ravi, Clive, Evan, or her mother since the zombie apocalypse broke out full force one month ago, but she has seen Blaine. In fact, Blaine is pretty much the only person that she has seen, being that they're now roomies and all. But just because she's allowing him to live under her roof, does not mean that they're friends, however. Making sure that he remains a human is merely one way that she manages to keep herself entertained during the dreadfully boring end of the world. And, slowly falling for him...well, that just happens to be another great way to keep her boredom at bay.





	1. A Father's Love

***Note* In the AU of this fic, Liv and Drake were never in a relationship. Having her bereaved wouldn’t be very beneficial for the plot.**

* * *

 

I’m covered in dirt, smell like a rotting corpse, and there’s no running water.  Wonderful. Life just keeps getting better and better. Whatever, I’m just so very, very thankful for this mucky, decaying brain I’m carrying home with me in a plastic baggie. It’s been over a week since I’ve had so much as a bite of brains. Honestly it took me getting to this point of total hunger and desperation to finally go out and dig up a grave. I didn’t want to do it, it was extremely exhausting, but what other choice did I have?

The number of zombies in the world (or at least Seattle) is now, by my best guess, ten times the population of living, breathing human beings. And that’s happened in the space of only one month. So, there’s now nothing to eat unless you’re willing to dig six feet down; everything, or rather, everyone else has had their brains ripped from their skulls and devoured. At this point the zombie populace is probably half cognitive and half lost cause. Demographics are not looking too sunny as of these days. The streets are filled with the mindless ones, but whenever I go out I always run into a few zombies like myself, as well. Everyone I meet just wants to know where I get my brains, though. I managed to keep the morgue a secret from the roamers until I had eaten through the limited brain supply we had on hand there. So now I’ve been forced to take to grave robbing.

There’s several sticky factors about trying to get your hands on a buried brain. First off, when choosing a coffin to dig up you have to first read the headstone above it and make sure that the body hasn’t been   down there for any longer than a handful of years, because if it has the chances of the brain being even remotely edible are very slim. Then, even once you’ve started shoveling up dirt to bring the corpse to the surface, you can never be certain that there will actually be a brain inside its skull, that isn’t a given since there’s a wide variety of situations that could cause for a cadaver to wind up being submerged without its cerebral cortex. And worst yet, even if you do manage to get your hands on a not-so-delicious, but undeniably necessary brain, there’s always the chance that some onlooker zombie whose too lazy or starving to go through the work of digging up their own lunch will come by and try to wrestle it from you, I’ve seen that happen before.

And now since grave robbing is basically the best and nearly only option, it’s caught on like wildfire and I’m honestly worried that the world is going to run out of graves to rob sooner than we think. Eventually we really will get to the point where there’s no one left to eat, and the world will be left with nothing but wild animals and mindless, miserable zombies to inhabit it. The world’s only hope is that small population of humans. I’ve really been crossing my fingers that since Seattle was hit the earliest and the hardest with this whole end of the world thing, maybe the rest of the country or at the very least the rest of the world has many, many more hearts that haven’t yet given up on beating. I’m hoping that one of those barricaded oases that survivors sometimes stumble upon right before the credits roll on a zombie flick is a reality somewhere. Of course, my hopes and dreams are also heavily polluted by the unceasing thoughts of Major, Peyton, Evan, Clive, and mom being okay. Whether they’re zombies just trying to make it day by day, or humans constantly running for their lives. I just want them to be okay.

If I’ve managed to make it this long maybe they have too, but yet I still haven’t seen any of them, and trust me I’ve been looking. Excluding Major, they were all humans the last time I saw them, which should be a positive, but is steadily becoming the very opposite. I try to keep myself busy during the day just so that I don’t think about stuff like this. I also try to sleep at night. I’m doing a pretty poor job at both.

But I have a bag o’ brains now, so for a while at least, I know that I’ll survive. 

Clutching the bag in one hand and my shovel in the other I begin to make my way back home.

The door is barricaded, as it should be. I can’t help myself, I breathe a small sigh of relief because he’s forgotten before, and it pisses me off every time. “Blaine, it’s me, Liv! Clear the door!” I yell as loud as my vocal cords will permit praying that he isn’t asleep and unable to hear me. Yelling is a bad idea in this world, as noise can attract the mindless ones and pique the interest of the mindful ones. Noise is also the only thing that will get me back into my apartment, however, so excuse me while I’m reckless.

I hear shifting around on the other side of the blockade and tap my fingers impatiently on the base of the handle. Having a brain in hand is making me antsy.

The door finally swings open to reveal Blaine standing among haphazard piles of hastily strewn furniture. My upturned loveseat lies in wait for me to walk into the room and shove it back up against the door. It’s sad, because I used to really like that loveseat and now I’m not sure that I’ll ever get to sit on it again. 

“Hey, how’d it g...Oh, you have a brain?”

Alright, yes. I’m living with Blaine right now, but in my defense if I wasn’t living with Blaine I would be living alone and that’s not something that I think I could handle at the moment. I’m trying to keep busy, trying to distract myself from misery, and even though I loathe him, I can’t deny that he makes that easier. Having a human around, even one that I hate, gives me a purpose. I can’t solve crimes anymore, I can’t save anyone; all that I can do is try to keep Blaine alive. I know that it’s pitiful, but that’s what it all boils down to. And besides that, he’s not _really_ Blaine. Or at least not the Blaine that murdered teenagers, shot Lowell, and stabbed Major. It’s not like I’ve forgiven him for any of that, I never will. But, he doesn’t even know what I’m talking about if I try to bring any of that up, so what’s the point?

“Yeah,” I swing the bag around before quickly ripping it open and scooping a few bits of two year old pink sludge onto my tongue. I briefly wonder who this organ once belonged to and how it will affect me, before sloppily engulfing a handful more. It’s slightly unnerving how little my disgusting table manners seem to bother him.

“Good, you’ve been looking even more lifeless than usual lately.” He closes the door, locks it, and quickly starts pushing tables and chairs back in front of it.

“I’m aware,” I mumble, forcing myself to put the brain down. I don’t want to eat it all at once, but without electricity I can’t put it in the freezer, not that it doesn’t already taste as spoiled as it could possibly ever get. And I really am hungry...giving in I pick it back up off the counter and resume my meal. I’m going to feel terribly sick in a few minutes. I just hope I don’t puke because that would be a serious waste of the most precious commodity in the current world. “Ugh, but digging up brains is a serious pain.” Such a pain, in fact, that I was a complete idiot for ever believing that Blaine would go through this much work for his meals. Even being a brain dealer sounds so much simpler.

“I’d offer to help, but I’m unfortunately under house arrest and my ankle monitor won’t let me go to the graveyard. Such a shame.”

“Like I’d want your company, anyway,” I mutter, my back turned to him as I finish slurping up the cerebellum. “No thank you, the only good thing about digging up this brain was that I didn’t have to deal with you for a few hours.”

“Hmm, but I know you love me, otherwise you wouldn’t keep coming back here.”

“This is my house, it’s not my fault that my unwelcomed guest refuses to leave just because he’s too much of a baby to face a few million zombies.”

Somehow our stupid banter will never die, and somehow it never fails to make me feel a smidge more lighthearted. Sadly, it’s times like these that I can’t help but wonder who’s really relying upon who the most. After one month of Blaine as my only companion, I think I’ve lost my mind. Despite myself he makes me feel safer, more at ease. But man do I still hate the fact that it’s him. It’s so dreadfully unfair that out of all of the humans in the world, all of the humans that I know, he’s the one that gets to live such a sheltered life under my roof, the one that I know for certain is still alive.

“I just value my mind too much to risk it.” Suddenly he’s standing right next to me in the kitchen, his body so close that he accidentally bumps my arm as I go to toss my empty bag in the trash can. “Sorry,” he whispers softly as he swings a cabinet door open and reaches inside for a box of cereal, “The delectable sight of your meal made me peckish.” He shakes a handful of Frosted Flakes into his cupped hand before dropping them into his mouth and mumbling around the mouthful. “Oh, hey by the way get another box of this, okay?”

“What do I look like your nanny?”

As a completely necessary safety precaution I haven’t let Blaine leave the apartment once this month. Usually whenever I go out to get myself a brain I go “grocery shopping” for him too by walking through the vacated apartments in my building and scavenging the food that my AWOL neighbors left behind. I probably should have done that today because I’m pretty sure that we are running short on food for him, but all that digging made me worn-out enough to warrant the procrastination.

“Sometimes, yes.”

“Well I’m not, and I don’t take requests, sorry. I’ll bring you whatever I can find.”

“Maybe if you would just let me go outside and get my own food...”

“If I let you go outside you’ll become food.”

He glares at me but I can see a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. “Right and have I said lately that I appreciate you not letting that happen? I’m quite enjoying having my brain inside my head for the moment.”

I’m a bit taken aback, because no, no I don’t think he’s ever said that before, actually. “I’m surprised, I had you pegged for a total ingrate.” It’s weird, because everything I thought that Blaine was, well mostly everything, he just isn’t anymore. This Blaine, sure he’s still sarcastic and kind of a jerk, but try as I might I can’t picture him killing destitute teenagers and selling their brains. I’m not sure that I even know who he is anymore, but he doesn’t either, and I like things better this way.

“As much as it pains me to do so, I’m willing to admit that I owe you one.” He puts the half empty box of cereal back in the cabinet and lets the door slam closed as he walks back towards the living room.

“Remember that!” I call after him as I also make my way to the living room, my business in the kitchen now concluded.

* * *

Like I mentioned, I haven’t been able to sleep at all lately. Like, total insomnia reminiscent of my first few months of zombieism. It’s pretty bad. There’s no electricity anymore and no air conditioning, so as the peak of summer fast approaches Seattle, it’s becoming stifling in my apartment. And occasionally a sporadic burst of loud, gut-wrenching moans will tear through the air from passing hordes of mindless zombies gaiting through the streets far below my window. Then there’s those damn thoughts to deal with, the ones that I try to distract myself from during the day.

Major, Ravi, Peyton, Evan, mom, Clive. Major, Ravi, Peyton, Evan, mom, Clive. Major, Ravi, Peyton, Evan, mom, Clive. Major, Ravi, Peyton, Evan, mom, Cli.....Dead, dead, I know they’re all dead. I’m not a fool, I just don’t want to have to think about it. Not now, not ever.

What was it that Ravi said to me after I found out that Lowell was munching on the brains of Blaine’s victims? _“What a luxury to not have to know for sure.”_

Yeah, I unquestionably understand what he meant now more than ever. I simply don’t want to know, because as long as I don’t know for sure, as long as I haven’t seen any of their corpses lying on the side of the road with cracked skulls and missing brains, I can have hope. I can go on living without feeling like an awful person or breaking down into tears every hour on the hour. What a luxury.

It’s so much harder to keep from running after morose trains of thought after the sun goes down and I’m trapped alone in a musty, hot room with them.

I closed my eyes a few seconds ago thinking that maybe tonight would finally be the night, but I know that it won’t be. I know that “the night” where sleep finally blesses me with its blissful presence will likely never come. I’m just wasting my time here, and if I had anything better to do with that time than waste it, I would have given up days ago.

I sit up and scoot down to the bottom of my bed before sitting up and letting my bare feet brush against the floor. I’m not sure what it is that compels me to do so, but I soon find myself standing, my hand wrapped around the doorknob and my mind with a clear destination inside of it. Blaine’s room.

He doesn’t wake up when I come into his room. He’s lying on his back with his eyes closed and his head facing up towards the ceiling. My own actions are so confusing, but my heart forces me to ever-so-carefully sit down next to him on the side of his, or rather Peyton’s, bed. Soon my hand is combing through his soft, steadily darkening hair.

_A small child, wrapped in the embrace of a colorful sheet, pale designs of dinosaurs mixing with more vibrant images of cars. He’s fighting to keep his eyes open, but they keep fluttering intermittently. There’s a bulky book lying on the bed next to him with a picture of castle and a title in large, but blurry print that I can’t quite make out._

_I reach towards him and run my fingers through his hair as he finally gives up his futile battle and allows his eyes to rest and his mind to slip away into his dreams. “Goodnight, daddy,” he whispers, as I move to pick the book up and leave him to his slumbering._

Great. Wonderful. I just ate the brain of the world’s most devoted dad and in the absence of any other options, it’s deluded me into pretending that Blaine is my son. Fantastic. Lovely. Let me go find a picture book real quick and get right down to reading it to him.

I jerk my hand back, thoroughly furious at myself and my supper. The motion, however, causes Blaine’s eyes to slowly bat open and his head turns over to face me. “Liv?” he whispers, obviously confused as he forces himself to sit up and look at me. “Did someone break in?”

I shake my head, and bite my bottom lip as I try to conjure up a plausible lie to tell him that doesn’t sound as pathetic as, _“No, sorry. I just came in so that I could pet you and pretend you’re my child.”_

“No...It’s just that I heard some footsteps above us and they just sort of made me uneasy, but I actually think I might have imagined it now because I only heard it once and I’m really sleep deprived so my mind is just all over the place.” I force a small smile as I rise to my feet and skid to the door. “I’ll just go back to my room.”

“Wait, hey, if the footsteps scared you, you can just admit it,” he grins at me, and hesitantly beckons for me to come back to where I had previously been seated. “I get it. Sometimes...the noises make it so that I can’t sleep either.”

A version of Blaine that tries to be this empathetic and understanding will never cease to simultaneously impress and unnerve me. Perhaps it is thanks to the swirl of confusion and curiosity that his random bouts of clear humanity cause to manifest within me, that bring me to return to his bedside. “I’m not scared of the noises.” I stand hovering over him, not wanting to go back to my sleepless suffering quite yet, but also not wanting to give into the brain and continue babying him. “They just...remind me of the state of the world, I guess. Remind me that everything and everyone I loved is gone forever.”

“Can’t help you there.” He’s starring up at me with big eyes that cut clear through the blackness. “I still can’t remember if I ever loved anything or anyone to begin with.”

“Probably not, I don’t think you were capable of love, just murder.”

His eyes flicker away from mine as the words spill out of my lips. He opens his mouth but closes it before allowing any sound to escape. He waits for a moment before trying again, “I’m not sure how to say this, but I’m...I don’t really know who I was, but as I am now, Liv, I’m sorry. Which yes, I know, doesn’t even begin to cut it, but it’s worth a shot.”

It’s uncomfortable standing next to him like this, so I slowly lower until I’m once again sitting on the bed. My hand is on his head before I can stop it. Damn this brain. He looks so confused, it’d be comical in another world. “No, it doesn’t cut it, and I swear that I’m never going to let myself forgive you,” I try to keep my voice even but it’s still quivering and I have to pause in order to reign it back in, “But the thing is, Blaine, hating you just doesn’t come naturally to me anymore. Sorry is a definite start.” I try to tell myself it’s the father inside of me talking, because there’s no way I would turn my back on all the innocent lives he stole by saying these things. The curtain is faulty, though. I know that it’s my mouth, my voice, my choice. I’m lonely and desperate and I just want to give in and forgive him, I really do. I’m so weak I disgust myself.

His eyes are bathed in confliction. "Would It be a bad thing if I took that to mean that we're now the bestest of buddies?"

"I'm giving you a chance, don't blow it."

"Sir, yes, sir. I'm really going to do my best not to kill anyone from here on out." He stares at me silently for a moment. "I mean, unless they really deserve it."

I finally take my hand off of his head and teasingly flick his forehead. "I'm not sure who you constitute as being deserving, and I don't like the sound of that."

He makes a show of rubbing at his forehead before giving in to a grin. "Oh come on, I think we're on the same page here. The guys that kidnapped Peyton, they deserved it, yes or no?"

I can't protest and I'm disappointed that he's not wrong. “Well, yes. I mean, had the circumstances been different, no, but since you did it to save her life...” God I’m worried about Peyton. Even just talking about her like this I feel sick inside. It’s easier to keep from grieving for the ones you loved if you just try to forget that they ever existed. I know it’s healthier to face your emotions head on, but at this point I just want a quick fix no matter the consequences. Blaine’s smile wanes as he catches on to the sudden regression in my mood.

“Hey, I hope that she’s okay too, and honestly I feel like she probably is.”

“Listen, I appreciate the effort, but I don’t need you getting my hopes up.”

“Alright, alright. I get it.” He sniggers and leisurely brings his hand up to rest it right on top of my shoulder. I scoff in annoyance, but he goes on speaking, anyway, “But let’s just say, for the sake of being hypothetical, that she is okay. Isn’t it entirely possible that right at this very moment she’s telling that guy that worked at the morgue-”

“Ravi.”

“Yeah, right, whatever. Ravi. She’s telling him not to get her hopes up because she thinks that you’re dead?” He lets his hand slide off of me. “There’s no point in forcing yourself to be bummed out now just because you’re afraid you might be even more bummed out later if you don’t bite the bullet and be gloomy about it right now.”

He has a point. I’ve become so used to being miserable that it’s now much more convenient and comfortable than allowing myself to be hopeful. Zombie Liv has only ever been an optimist when she had Leslie Morgan’s positivity surging through her stomach. Unfaltering father, though, he’s not helping much. “Fine. I’ll try harder. Maybe you’re right; maybe they are just as alive as you and me.” Still, though, I’m a zombie. My odds are so, so very much better than hers. Well, I guess I can seek asylum in the fact that Blaine has the same crappy odds as her and has managed to stay among the living. As far as I know, Peyton and Ravi were with Major shopping when this all went down. Meaning, that they may have a zombie watching their backs, too. Except, Major was cured and just regressed back to zombieism which should bring him to...well, death. That whole threat of death after being cured thing is the reason why Blaine is the way that he is. If Blaine was right about being on the verge of dying, then if Major continued to go uncured he would be gone by now.

No, I just promised not to think like that. I need to stop. Maybe Blaine was just being melodramatic when he made the impulsive decision to cure himself based solely off of the early demise of a test rat. Or maybe Ravi was carrying some of the cure with him when this all went down and right now Major is very much alive and human, but just amnesic and fairly incapable of protecting anyone. That puts a breach in my “Major is guarding Peyton and Ravi” theory, but at least it contradicts my “Major is definitely deader than the living dead” fear.

“Yeah, that’s the spirit! But you’re dead so you may want to think about rephrasing that.”

“Oh shut it.”

He yawns silently and I cast my eyes towards the window, it’s not out of the realm of plausibility that it’s brighter than it was when I came in here. I honestly think morning is about to pour over the dreary world. Crap, how long have I been in here? I stand up again, “Sorry, I forgot that you’re a human and actually _need_ to sleep.”

“It doesn’t really matter, whether it’s dawn or dusk, without any responsibilities I can sleep whenever I want.” He says one thing, but the bags under his eyes say another.

“Lucky you.” I lean over, say, “Sleep tight, kiddo,” press my lips against his temple, and watch him gape at me in shock. “It’s the brain I ate! I swear!” I shout, trying to clear away the confusion as quickly as possible.

He looks so smug and amused I want to smack him as I turn to walk towards the partially open door. “If you say so!” he calls, laughing.

Ugh, I’m such an idiot. How could I have let myself do that?

I’m just relieved that zombies can’t blush.

* * *

 

**I’ve been working on this since mid-November and have 40,000+ words of it written, but I’m just now finally growing the guts to actually post it on here. I’ll try to update every Monday, but what I have written isn’t proofread yet and I’m only about halfway done with writing it, as it is, so whether I can actually stick to that schedule remains to be seen, I guess. Anyway, thank you so, so much for reading this! If you liked it please leave a kudos and a comment would also be incredibly appreciated. Thank you!**

 


	2. A Child's Slumber

Graves. A week and a half ago I was standing in this very same graveyard, but a week and a half ago it wasn’t being inhabited by a small army of rogue zombies.

“Please, you can’t do this! There’s enough to go around!” A young woman shouts, she has white hair, nearly translucent skin, and a smaller white haired little boy wrapping his arms around her legs and pulling at the hem of her t-shirt.

“Soon there won’t be. There’s not enough graves here to feed the world, lady. We called dibs and I’m afraid all you suckers are just gonna’ have to deal with that.” A middle-aged man, the color of curdled milk, built like a slight tank, and clutching a M16.

“My son can’t go much longer without something to eat! Just spare one brain, please!”

“We’ve had beggars running around here all day, nobody here is going to give in to your whining, so get lost before I lose my patience.” He shifts the weight of the rifle in his hand, flaunting it just to intimidate her.

The woman tears up, gingerly wipes at her cheeks, and bravely, or perhaps foolishly, stands her ground. The only medal she wins for her courage is a bullet to the chest. Her body crumples forward as she cries out in pain, clutching at the crimson wound. She forces herself to take a step forward as she reaches for her child’s tiny hand. “Come on, Ashton. Let’s go now.”

The barrel of his gun turns to me, “You want to learn a lesson too, little girl?” he asks.

I shake my head, and begin to back away. No. I don’t want to be shot, but I won’t be able to live with myself if I take this lying down. If I allow these people to starve innocent families and shoot innocent mothers. Gritting my teeth, I move forward. “Maybe you’re the one that needs to learn a lesson!” I yell, “I know that you think that you’re doing what you need to do, food storage is important, right? But you people, you’re just going to destroy the world! You think that once everyone else has become stark mad because you’ve deprived them of brains the world will be one worth living in!? No matter what you do the buried brains aren’t going to last forever, but together with time we could all come up with a way to cure zombieism! If no one but you muscle heads has their wits about them, though, then the Earth is doomed!”

“Cure zombieism?” he scoffs, “Aren’t you a dreamer.”

I want to tell him that I’ve seen it happen before. I want to tell him that there’s already a cure to zombieism, though flawed as it is. But a bullet to my stomach takes my breath away, and I don’t get the chance to tell him much of anything.

* * *

“It’s unbelievable! You should have seen them all, I think there were like thirty or forty of them, each one packing heat. And it’s not just that graveyard, no I went to check out the next closest one, wasted gas to drive there and everything. Same thing there! Thirty violent zombies ready and willing to kill their own kind just because they’re selfish hoarders!” I force myself to stop and take a deep breath as it occurs to me how very close I am to stimulating myself right into full on zombie mode, which would an awful, awful thing to do when I’m past hungry and there’s a fully functioning brain a mere handful of inches away from me.

“Wow...so you want me to help you get the bullet out or are you good with just keeping it in there?” Blaine keeps glancing at the trivial pool of drying blood that soaked through my hoodie. I think he thinks that it’s more painful than it actually it. His concern is really unnecessary, though I can’t say I don’t appreciate that the tables have turned on the whole _“who is being protective of who”_ state of affairs.

“I can do it myself; no offense but I’ve never thought you’d make a good doctor.”

“None taken.” He coaxes his eyes away from my abdomen and finally meets my gaze, “So what are you going to do? How’re you planning to get brains now?”

“If I knew that I wouldn’t be starving right now!” I yell, my tone so harsh that I’m even scaring myself.

His eyes quickly flicker elsewhere, and he scoots further away from me on the couch. “Liv,” he whispers, putting his hands up like I just told him to drop a gun, “I’m not trying to be insensitive here, but should I leave?”

I’m about to snap again, but I just barely manage to bite my tongue and think before I speak. “What do you mean?” I take care to keep my question simple and my voice under control.

He sighs and shoots me a guilty glance. “I don’t know.”

“Sure you don’t. I’m not going to kill you, Blaine. I’m not that desperate.” A silent _“yet”_ hangs heavy in the air between us, and I know that he can feel the weight of it on his mind. But there’s no way that I’d just let myself deteriorate to the point where I’m willing to crack someone’s skull open to sate my hunger. I’ll find a way to handle this. It will be fine.

He nods his head and rises to his feet. “Alright. If you ever do kill me, though, don’t sweat it, okay?” He winks at me before walking into Peyton’s bedroom and closing the door.

I shiver, despite not being at all chilly, because he just sounded so serious. I’m used to Blaine saying unspeakable things with a straight face, but this is different. He wasn’t trying to be funny.

“Blaine!” I shout, before marching to Peyton’s door and pounding on it pugnaciously.

“What is it!?” He opens the door so rapidly that my fist is still working on autopilot and I wind up almost punching him in the chest.

“Why did you say that!?” I demand, walking around him until I’m perched on top of the bed with my legs dangling carelessly over the side.

He grins and sit down next to me. “Oh, why must you always be so whiny? I was just trying to be nice. I mean, accidents happen, zombies get hungry, and brains get eaten.  I’m not saying that I want it to happen, because let’s just put this out there, I don’t. But if my brain were to wind up in your stomach I know that you’d immediately get all moody, and _“Oh whatever have I done? I can’t go on!”_ He puts the back of his hand against his head doing a mock damsel in distress swoon that makes me want to smack him upside the head. “I’m just saying, that’s not necessary, is all. I give you permission to forgive yourself for eating me if push comes to shove.”

I cup my hand over my mouth and slowly shake my head. “I know that you’re trying to pay penance, but this is ridiculous! No Blaine I know would ever say anything like that!”

“Weird, because I could have sworn that I’m at least one of the Blaines that you know, and I just said that, so...wow. That’s so eerie.”

I lose it.

I absolutely lose it.

We’re both on the ground by the time I become fully aware of my actions. He’s pressing his hand over one of his eyes and wincing in pain, and I’m still pinning him down. Oh my god. I’ve really done it now. I went into full on zombie mode. It was just like when I murdered Marcie except this time I managed to reign it back in a bit more promptly. I feel my features shifting back to normal and I’m frantically breathing in deep gasps of breath that I don’t really need.

Blaine must notice me shifting back to normal, as he frenziedly shoves me off of him and scrambles to his feet. I wonder what happened to all that tough-guy talk, he seems pretty genuinely terrified of something he just claimed to be perfectly fine with.

His hand is still over his eye, and it suddenly occurs to me that maybe... “I didn’t scratch you did I!?”

He shakes his head, before turning his back to me. “No, I’m fine,” he mumbles, his voice shaky, “You just punched me a few times.”

“Blaine...I,” I stand up and cautiously start to approach him.

He spins back around to face me, both of his hands at his side and his eye and cheek bright red. “I deserved that. You’re trying to protect me and I’m being an ingrate, I get it. I just think you’re taking it the wrong way. I wasn’t trying to say that you _can_ eat my brain, that I wouldn’t be upset and in pain and horrified! But obviously you losing control, like you just did, is a possibility we both have to learn to accept. I was trying to be lighthearted about it, but since that aggravates you so, I’ll just put it as solemnly as I can. When you’re sitting on the ground with your hands covered in blood, and you return to your senses to see my body lying limp next to you, and you wonder where to go from there. Just do whatever the hell you want and forget about your failed mission to protect me.”

I feel moisture roll rapidly down from my eyes to the bottom of my chin. I take another cautious step towards him. “Blaine, shut up! Who do you think I am? You really think that I could just forgive and forget? I’m not a monster, I mean, I don’t want to be a monster! If I were to kill you, that would be _it_. I wouldn’t just move past something like that! I couldn’t even shoot you back when you were nothing but the twisted psychopath that slaughtered teens and killed my boyfriend. You really think that I’d be okay with killing you now?”

“You’re not even listening, why am I wasting my breath? I told you that I wouldn’t want that to be _it_. I don’t expect you to be okay with killing me, trust me I do know you better than that.” He smiles warmly at me, and closes the gap between us. “I’m going to hug you, don’t go raging out on me, kay’?”

He wraps his arms around me and I bristle. “What did you just say?” I whisper so quietly that I can barely even hear myself.

“Don’t go raging out on me?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, that. Why did you say that?”

“Okay. I’m sorry. Maybe I should just never talk again. There’s honestly nothing I can say that won’t upset you is there?”

“No, sorry it’s not that, I just...That’s just a phrase you said the first time I met you and it seems weird to me that you’d call it that now, but I guess you’re still the same person in some ways after all.” I smile up at him, before forcing my way out of his arms. “I still hate you, don’t hug me.”

He laughs, and playfully pulls me back into the hug. “Just for once pretend that I’m tolerable. You owe me that much after what you did to my eye.”

 I sigh, and wrap my arms around him, surprised to find that I’m not doing it begrudgingly. “I hope you know that I’m never going to eat you, so this whole argument was beyond pointless and stupid.”

“Point taken.”

* * *

 

Problem 1- I don’t know where to get brains.

Problem 2- Blaine is eating a can of green beans and I really want to eat Blaine.

Problem 3- I promised Blaine I wouldn’t do that.

“I’m going to go take a walk,” I mutter, quickly jumping to my feet and rushing towards the door. I need to get out of here and not come back until I’ve taken care of this hunger. I can feel myself slipping, and I’m starting to worry that I really do pose a serious threat to his life.

“Have fun!” he calls, glancing outside the window longingly and continuing to eat.

I push the barricade away and open the door. “Remember to lock the door and move everything back once I’m gone.”

“Will do.”

I step out of the apartment and slam the door shut behind me. I lean my back against the closed door for a moment, desperately trying to compose myself before I step out into this dangerous new world of ours. There’s always the slim chance that I’ll run into some humans out here too, so I really need to get myself in order.

I walk through the silent hallways; some of the doors to the apartments are flung open, the furniture inside strewn about oddly suggesting that they’ve been ransacked. I know that some of the mess was caused by me. I’ll admit that I’m guilty of leaving some of these apartments in such a state, though I mostly only scour through the kitchens in search of leftover unspoiled food to bring back to Blaine. 

I bypass a copious puddle of dried up blood caked against the carpet next to the front door of the building. I must have seen it a million times, but yet it still sends shivers up and down my spine. I’m used to blood and death, but the fact that it’s so close to my sanctuary makes me uneasy.

I step out into the lively sun and instantaneously start to feel just a tad better. I can do this. I just need to find a bite or two of brains and everything will be A-Okay again. Or as close to A-Okay as this relic of a life can get.

I cross the street, listening to the sound of footsteps reverberate through the otherwise soundless city. I feel like the world is more and more comatose every time I decide to venture out into it. Today it seems especially hushed and I have to admit that it distresses me.

I always thought that I was lucky for being able to flippantly venture outside whenever the whim arose, but now I feel like maybe Blaine is the lucky one for not having to experience this world firsthand. I don’t know if he knows the extent of the extinction, but ignorance is bliss, after all.

I see something lying on the middle of the road in the distance and I can’t help but close my eyes and change my direction. I freeze before I can make any progress on my new path. As much as I don’t want to walk over there and see the carnage of a human being that was torn apart by savages, I know that investigating such gruesome scenes is the only way I’ll stand a shot at finding something to eat. Maybe the Romeros left a little something behind for me.

I jog over to the cadaver and lean over to peer inside the shattered cranium. There’s nothing in there. Not a scrap.

I sigh, but steel myself to keep going. Eventually I’ll get lucky. The first time is never the charm.

So, I keep walking aimlessly for hours upon hours. I see so many carcasses that I become numb enough to block out what they really are. After a while all that I see are empty bags where brains should be.

I start going off the main roads and down through alleys, into buildings, and anywhere that I had originally been trying to avoid for fear of accidentally coming in contact with crooked zombies.

The sun is starting to bid me ado, and desperation builds a nest in the back of my mind. I don’t want to have to find somewhere to sleep for the night. I need to find brain matter now! I’m physically exhausted and want nothing more than to curl under the covers on my bed and pretend to sleep. But as long as my search keeps coming up empty I can’t go home.

I lift the cover off of a dumpster and half-heartedly glance inside. The bulging eyes of a decimated child vacantly stare up at me through the nightfall. I shift a few bags of garbage to the side so that I can see inside of her head. I’d let out an exclamation of joy if that weren’t a terribly distasteful thing to do at such a sight. But, man, I am so relieved to see nearly half a brain gummed up inside her skull. I reach inside with one bare hand and fetch a plastic baggy from the pocket of my jeans with my other. The texture of the cerebellum in my hand is pretty nasty, but I’m so used to it that it no longer phases me. I zip the bag up and set off running. I need to get back to the apartment and shove this brain inside of my mouth ASAP.

I really don’t know what sort of wasteful numbskull would throw away perfectly good brains, but I’m sure glad they did.

* * *

_Red eyed monsters in the shape of people. Their skin is reminiscent of snow, but they’re steadily painting it crimson. A man clad in a suit and tie lies motionless at their feet. A woman shrieks and I spin around to face her. The monsters descend upon her and I feel myself dissolving into a fit of sobs. “Mommy!”_

_The woman looks at me just as one of the beasts takes hold of her and pins her back against the side of building. “Run, Eliza! Mommy will catch up with you later. Run!”_

“Liv?” I snap back into reality to find a hand being waved swiftly up and down in front of my face.

I’ve had more visions than I can keep a tally of, but this one officially wins the award for the worst one to date. I feel like I just got through watching a trailer for a high budget horror film, except I know that that all really happened just the way that I saw it.

It becomes hard to breathe as I break into heavy, ugly sobs just as Eliza did in my vision. Right now I really don’t know if being under the influence of an innocent child that watched her parents be torn apart right before her eyes is at all preferable to starving.

Blaine sits on my bed and scoots closer to me until his shoulder is pressing against mine. I can tell that he wants to comfort me but is too nervous to touch me for fear that I’ll break. Normally, it does piss me off when he tries to hold me, but right now I already feel so broken that I’m willing to do anything to put myself back together.

I brush the back of my hands against my eyes to wipe away a bit of the moisture dampening my skin, then I carefully rest my head on his chest. I concentrate on the sound of his heart. The steady rhythm it beats to is so much quicker than my own. I can’t help but admire how hard hearts work to pump the blood of the living. He’s so very warm too. I think I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be held like this. I don’t care that it’s Blaine that I’m leaning against, the contact alone is comfortable. I’ve gotten his shirt pretty moist but he doesn’t seem to mind it.

 It’s only when he starts rubbing his hand against my back in calming circles that the spell breaks. Because that’s something that Major always did. Something that Major did when I was engaged to him. When we were in love.

I gasp and scurry away from him so hurriedly that I almost fall off of the bed. I’m in my second bout of tears when I finally brave meeting his eyes. To my surprise, he doesn’t seem at all dismayed. “Sorry,” he whispers, smiling at me. I wonder how he knows to apologize even when he honestly didn’t do anything wrong. I’m impressed. He keeps up with my unreliable temperaments remarkably well. “I promise that I wasn’t trying to make it weird.”

My crying fades to laughter. “No, it’s fine. We’re good.”

“Okay, fantastic. Do you feel better now?” He moves to get up but I wrap a hand around his wrist.

“Not entirely. You know when I went into your room and we talked all night?” He nods, as he settles back down on the bed. “Yeah, can we do that again? I just really don’t want to be alone. I mean, I still feel like a little girl paralyzed by the monsters underneath her bed. I want to creep into my parents’ room and tell them I had a nightmare.” I feel pathetic, but yet I don’t care. Children don’t feel ashamed for being vulnerable, and honestly, I think that’s something adults could learn from.

“Aw, that’s cute.” He lays his head down against one of my pillows. I scoot back next to him, realizing that I can’t spend the rest of the night on the edge of my bed because I’m leery of the person I just asked to stay here. “But you remember how last time you had the stunning revelation when the sun came up that I’m a human and require plentiful sleep to function properly?”

“You’re tired, aren’t you?” I ask, feeling a smile tugging at the corners of my lips.

“Kind of, yes.”

I give in and lower my head onto the other pillow. “Fine. I guess I grant you permission to sleep then, mortal.”

“Thanks, I can’t even begin to express my gratitude.”

* * *

I slept. It was deep, heavenly slumber.

I slept. I’m in disbelief.

I slept. At this point, I’m fairly certain that’s a miracle.

You don’t know how wonderful it is to be unconscious for seven or so hours every night until you lose the ability to knock yourself out.

Now that I’m awake all I want to do is go back to sleep. Blaine is still in the bed next to me, still asleep. Our bodies are turned so that we’re facing each other just like we were when we both laid down. He looks so peaceful that I’m jealous. If I’m awake he should have to be awake too.

“Blaine,” I whisper, trying to rouse him into cognizance. He doesn’t even stir. I sigh and sit up before trying again, louder this time. “Blaine!” Finally his eyes snap open and for a moment he looks incredible disoriented. I feel a little guilty. Maybe I should have just been nice and let him sleep. Well, it’s too late for that.

“Oh, I forgot that I fell asleep in here,” he mumbles, his eyes still struggling to adjust to being open.

“Yeah, I could tell,” I scoff.

“Did you sleep at all?” he asks, sitting up and looking at me expectantly. I give him the satisfaction of a small nod, knowing that he’s hoping the answer will be an affirmative. He beams at me, looking a bit too smug for my tastes. “So you can only sleep when I’m around, huh? I just have such a comforting presence. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“I’m sure it’s just because I ate the brain of a child; children _are_ notorious for sleeping all the time.”

“Oh really? Let’s see how well you sleep tonight, shall we? I place my bet on not at all.”

“You don’t have any money.”

“I didn’t say that I was betting money.”

“Then what’s your bargaining chip?”

“I don’t know. Stop taking everything so literally all the time, it’s unbecoming.”

I know that the brain isn’t what made me sleep, that’s obvious. And he knows it too. But there’s no way I’m going to own up to it, no way. Children might not be ashamed of their vulnerability, but I’m not a child. And sleeping in the same bed as Blaine every night is 100% out of the question. It’simply not an option.

I’d rather deal with insomnia for the rest of my life.


	3. A Cautionary Tale

The day that this all started, the first day of the end of the world, I was glued to the couch watching Games of Thrones. The fact that Clive was such a raving fan had sold me on it, so I, armed with 2 bags of Hellfire Cheezy Puffs, had begun my endeavor. I had reached episode 7 when Major, bright eyed and bushy-tailed asked who wanted to accompany him to the grocery store. I was deep in couch potato cardiac arrest victim brains and anything that required me peeling my butt off of the couch had ceased to be enticing. So, nope, sorry, I had 30 minutes left in that episode and I was not going to give up now.

Major, lucky him, had waited to eat the day before until my meal was already well into my system and the lethargy was upon me. Though he pitied me, he was unwilling to share my affliction, and had opted to eat the brains of a vegan yoga instructor instead. Our apartment was incredibly unsuited for the likes of a vegan, so he was willing to reprieve his wallet of some cash for the sake of fresh vegies, tofu, and almond milk.

Peyton, as shaken as she still was from the events of two nights prior, decided that a grocery run would be a good way to bring some normalcy into her week and agreed to go with him. Ravi, tagged along too, likely just because she did. He had been on a real mission to get some alone time with Peyton since Blaine had singlehandedly, guns-a-blazing, saved her life and he had despite all odds become the underdog in the battle for her heart.

I bid them all farewell, and pushed the play button to resume my compulsive binge watching. That’s when I heard sirens, those horrible sirens signaling a state of emergency. They were followed by piercing screams cutting through the air around me and shaking me to my core. Only a day and a half had passed since the party at Max Rager, and I knew immediately what had caused the screams and the need for blaring sirens. We had missed one. Something had happened and Vivian, Major, and I, we must have let some of the mindless stomachs escape out into the world to summon the white horse of the apocalypse.

I had caused the whole world to crash down around me, and I still couldn’t compel myself to get off the couch.

I’m pretty sure that Blaine had been in the middle of taking a shower. He had come scrambling out of the bathroom, dripping wet with a towel wrapped around his waist yelling at me to tell him what all the noise was about.

Well, I told him. And here we are.

* * *

 

“Liv, please!”

“No, shut up!”

“But you won’t be a massage therapist forever!”

“And I don’t want to be.”

“Come on, you were just complaining that you’re bored. It’s something to do!”

“You are aware of how creepy you sound, right?”

“Liv, I’m going to take my shirt off and I want you to place your hands on my naked back and...”

“Blaine!” I start laughing, and I hate myself for it. I was trying so hard to not laugh. I’m a complete and utter failure. I have no place in this world anymore.

He starts tugging his shirt off, and I lean over on the couch and punch his upper arm hard enough to bruise. “If you don’t stop I swear that I will eat you.”

“Is that a double entendre?”

“You did not just say that.”

He stops stripping and turns to face me with a smirk on his face. “Unfortunately, I did. But don’t worry, because I too wish that I hadn’t.”

“Good,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at him. “Now are you ready to stop being inappropriate?”

“Yes. I’ve accepted that you’re self-centered and intend to waste your new ability.”

“Good,” I repeat.

Even if this brain has inspired Blaine to become a total pervert, it’s still one of the better brains I’ve eaten. I know that the woman was devoured by zombies because of the state that I found her body in, but so far all of my visions have just been of her at work. Her work being that of a massage therapist...Which is something that I, in retrospect, wish I had kept to myself.

“Oh, hey, by the way, we’re running out of food again. Sorry, I forgot to mention that last time you went out...”

“It’s fine. Anything that gets me out of the house and away from you sounds great right now.”

He bites his bottom lip to keep from snickering. “You hurt me so. I’m on the verge of tears here.”

“Poor thing,” I mumble, coaxing myself off the couch and towards the door. I make sure to grab a few brown paper bags that I leave leaning against the wall for times like these and then I set to pushing the topsy-turvy furniture out of my way.

“Don’t forget to move this stuff back and lock the door!” Blaine calls, doing a ridiculously inaccurate impersonation of me as he kicks his feet up onto the couch to occupy the space that I just barely vacated.

“Nah, this time I was actually going to say that it’s okay if you forget. Your life is becoming less important to me as the days go by.”

His mouth drops open and I can tell that he’s genuinely offended now. I chuckle and he scowls at me from across the room. “Too far!” he calls.

“Ok, fine. Don’t forget to move this stuff back and lock the door, because you’re so precious to me, Blaine, and I can’t imagine a world without you!” I have my back turned to him when I say, afraid of my own expression. I don’t want him to know how spot-on that sarcastic sentiment has started to feel.

“Now that’s better, Liv!” His voice is softer as he says, “Be careful out there.”

I smile despite myself and nod my head. “Of course.”

* * *

I already have one bag full of food, and I’m starting to feel quite accomplished. I just need to load up one, at most two, more bags and then I’ll be good to go.

The apartment to my right has its door still shut, letting me know that I haven’t been in there yet. I try to open it, but find that it’s locked. I’m sort of disappointed, but maybe if I just pound on the knob a little bit I can...Oh, I opened it. Okay, now I feel extremely accomplished.

I step inside and instantly head to the kitchen. I tug the cupboards open and start moving the cans and boxes around to take inventory. I know that it’d be more efficient to just shove anything and everything I find into the bags, but I prefer to know what I’ve gathered.

My hands wrap around a bag that crinkles noisily as I touch it. It’s Hellfire Cheezy Puffs. I have never in my life or death been so excited to see a bag of cheap junk food. I am absolutely thrilled. I find another identical bag behind that one and quickly shove them both into one of the brown bags like they’re a precious treasure I need to shield from the cruelty of the world.

I open up the next cupboard and I find that I’ve yet again hit the jackpot. A box of Frosted Flakes. I smile as I shove them in the bag, hoping that Blaine will actually be as pleased to see them as I imagine him being.

Just as I’m about to reach in the cereal cupboard to grab a box of Reeses Puffs I hear a noise. It’s very indistinct, just a generic clashing sound, but it seems to be in close proximity. I freeze, keeping still so that I can listen for any other clatters and not draw any attention to myself. A minute goes on in absolute silence, and I deem it safe to shove the rest of the cereal in my bag, making sure to remain as quiet as I can for precaution’s sake. I’m probably overreacting. For all I know it could just be Blaine. Or, for all I know it could just be someone breaking in to murder Blaine.

Happy thoughts, Olivia. Happy thoughts.

I think that I’ve emptied this particular apartment of all its storage, so I grab my now two full bags of food, and walk back out into the hallway. By this point I’m stupidly paranoid. So much for three bags. Whatever, he’ll be fine with two, and if he isn’t, I can always go out tomorrow and fill up another. But for right now, it’s of vital importance that I just check up on him. Leaving him alone always makes me a bit antsy, but with that noise and all I feel more on edge than ever.

The bags are heavy, but the weight doesn’t affect me much. As a zombie, grocery shopping is about a million times easier. I could carry six bags this weight with no problem. It’s still difficult to get them upstairs, though, because the stairway is annoyingly narrow and the elevator will likely remain out of order forever, just like the rest of Seattle’s electricity.

I rush up to my floor and turn the corner to my apartment. It takes every morsel of restraint within my bones not to drop those bags of food right then and there. It takes everything I’ve got not to scream.

There’s a corpse propped up against the door. The split second that I think that it’s _him_ almost destroys me. But it’s not, it’s not him. I don’t know the person, never seen them before in my life. I can’t help it, I breathe a sigh of relief as I warily walk closer to investigate.

The back of the skull is gone, a grisly sight that I’ve already accepted as normal. It’s not even the cadaver that steals my breath away, it’s the message above it. Written in damp fresh blood it reads _“Who is all the food for?”_

They know. Whoever “they” is, they’ve been watching me, and they know.

No zombie would waste their time accumulating this much food when it’s become so very meaningless to us. There’s only one plausible explanation for my behavior. And besides, that, they’ve probably heard us. I’m sure they’ve listened in and are well aware that I’m not living alone in there.

I stand there, unable to move and unable to think. I merely clutch the bags in my arms wanting nothing more than to burst inside and make sure that no one has laid a hand on him, but I know that the door is locked and barricaded, and in order to get past that I have to yell for him to open the door. If I yell for Blaine to open the door and they’re hiding somewhere nearby they’ll definitely ambush us once he does. I’m stuck at a crossroads.

I know that I’m eventually going have to go inside, standing around biding time isn’t doing anyone any good. I need to get this over with and get into the apartment. It’s possible that it won’t end well, but it’s really my only option.

I grab onto the arm of the corpse and drag it away from the door, before yelling, “Blaine!” and beginning to pound on the door with my fist. I’m being extra loud because I want him to come to the door extra quickly, and I don’t think that our volume matters much anymore.

He pulls the door open for me, I force him back inside, drop the bags, and then immediately turn around to lock the door. He swoops the bags off of the floor, and watches me start frantically placing a loveseat on top of a table in front of a door.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, walking to the kitchen and setting the bags on the counter.

“No,” I mutter, gritting my teeth and shaking my head. “Not at all.”

He tilts his head to the side and frowns, “Why’s that?”

“Someone knows that I have a human in here and they left me a message in blood outside along with a decomposing body to really bring the point home,” I walk towards the kitchen as I speak.

“Whoa, seriously?” His eyes widen in shock, but he reaches into one of the bags and starts putting the food in our cupboards as casually as if this chat were about the weather.

I run my fingers through my hair and take a deep breath. “What are we going to do? It’s not safe for you to be here anymore, but I’m not even sure that there is anywhere left in the world where it would be safe for you to be.”

“Probably not, and I don’t feel much like leaving...” He reaches back into the bag, “You got Frosted Flakes? You’re my hero. I’ll forever be indebted to you.”

“Blaine, I’m serious!” I should have known that he’d act like this. If there’s one thing that Blaine absolutely can’t be sober about, it’s his own life. My working theory is that it’s some sort of messed-up defense mechanism of his. Death scares him, just as it does anyone, but he finds it much easier to make jokes about it than face that fear head-on. It drives me crazy.

“What do you want, Liv? I already told you, I don’t want to leave. You’re right, we’re as safe here as we would be anywhere. Besides, I still have a drawer full of guns and fantastic aim.”

“Maybe you should start keeping a gun with you at all times.”

“Sounds inconvenient.”

“I don’t care how inconvenient it sounds. Do you really want to just sit around and not do anything to try to protect yourself? Because that’s unacceptable.”

He’s almost done putting food away, but he stops for a moment to meet my gaze. “I’ll carry a gun, Liv. I really do appreciate you worrying about me, but I feel like you think about me dying way too much. The whole of your existence doesn’t need to revolve around trying to keep me from meeting an untimely demise, that’s just overkill.”

“I think about plenty of other things!” I shout, trying and failing to think of a witty comeback.

“Like?”

“Like...my family and friends, the state of the word, where I’m going to get my next brain...Don’t be so egotistical as to think that my mind is occupied by nothing but thoughts of you.”

He smiles and starts to laugh a little. “If it was, that would make things even, though.”

I stand, leaning against the counter wordlessly for one awkward moment that stretches on into one awkward eternity. How am I even supposed to respond to that?

“Blaine...” I finally whisper, just to have said something. Just to break the silence.

His serious expression fades and he bursts out laughing again. “It’s just so easy to make you uncomfortable, I love it.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “You can’t do things like that!” I whine. “Of course it makes me uncomfortable when you pretend that you love me, because I know how appealing I am and I just really don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“Huh, is that it? Who’s egotistical now?” He pauses for a moment as if waiting for me to respond, but when I open my mouth to speak he cuts me off before I can get a word out. “Oh, hey. I keep forgetting to ask, but how have you been sleeping lately?”

Crap. I knew that the day would come that he’d ask me this. I’ve been waiting, praying that he’d forget about this subject forever.

I consider lying, it’d probably be my best course of action. It would be easy, I would just need to say “fine” and then he’d have to drop the conversation and let me be. It would be so easy.

“I haven’t been.” I curse myself for telling the truth and wonder what compelled me to do so. Maybe it’s the fact that I miss sleep. That I know that by telling him I can bring a stop to my insomnia. Maybe it’s because I want him to sleep in my room with me. Because my life really does revolve around trying to keep him from dying, and having him by my side is enough to permit me to let go of that particular worry and slip into my dreams.

“Do you want me to...”

“Yes.” I answer.

He smiles at me, and I know that he’s trying to convey that he’s not going to judge me for it. That I needn’t be so embarrassed. “Can do.”

* * *

 

Brains.

I need them. I’m starting to run seriously low on energy and control again.

The thing is, I haven’t left the apartment in a week. I absolutely refuse to leave the apartment. I can’t, not after what’s still painted on the door in eerie crimson. The problem though, the giant block in the middle of the road that I just can’t seem to get around is that no matter what scenario I play out in my head Blaine always winds up dying. I stay in here forever and go full on George Romero, Blaine dies. I go out to sate my hunger, and _they_ decide that my departure is the perfect time to strike, Blaine dies. I go out to sate my hunger and bring Blaine with me so that I can keep an eye on him, but we soon run into a hoard of brainless, or merely brain-deprived, zombies, Blaine dies.

“Liv, you look like hell.”

“Thanks.”

“You need to go get something to eat, you’ve been procrastinating long enough.” Blaine is totally game for option B. In his head I don’t think that option B has the same ending. In his head I don’t think that any of the options have the same ending.

“I’m not procrastinating.”

“You’re putting off something that needs to be done, I think that might be the dictionary definition of the word. Or maybe it’s putting off something that should be done? Should be or needs to be...hmm.”

“Ok. Then if I am procrastinating, what I’m putting off is you being butchered.”

“Meh, either way there’s no use in delaying the inevitable.” He’s lying in my bed next to me. I told him that it wasn’t safe to sleep here anymore, not when I’m so hungry, but he never listens to anything I have to say. We’re both too lazy to get out of bed right now, and without any real reason to do so, I think we might be content to just let today serenely slither past us.

“Your death is not inevitable. I just need to think of a way to stop it. I know that there is a way to stop it, though.”

“Well we definitely can’t stop it by just lying in bed and letting you starve your way to insanity. That’s not a plan I can get behind.”

“But finding a brain takes longer and longer every time I go searching for one, I’d be leaving you alone for four plus hours.”

“Too bad all the babysitters are dead, huh?” He sits up and shakes his head. “Liv, I can manage on my own for a few hours. I might be human, but I’m not defenseless. If you leave and I wind up dying, you have my consent to kill me.”

I bite my bottom lip, and draw in a superfluous breath as I start to raise my body into a less horizontal position. “I’ll never forgive myself if I selfishly go out to feed myself and leave you to die.”

“Why does everything I say go in one of your ears and out the other? You wouldn’t be leaving me to die, I’m capable of taking care of myself; I had my eighth birthday party a couple weeks ago. It was great; there was chocolate cake and everything. And oh yeah, wow, Liv. Really selfish of you. How dare you not waste away on my account? Unbelievable.” His blue eyes reflect the morning light. They’re so full of life. Imaging those blue eyes dull without that shimmer of life, that’s the thought that makes me want to hide back under the covers and wish the whole world away.

“Ok. Ok. You’re right. I have no choice. I have to go get some brains, come straight back here, and you will most certainly not be dead.”

“Most certainly not.”

* * *

“Don’t forget to move this stuff back and lock the door,” I mumble, trying to force myself to smile as I pack a plastic baggy into my pants’ pocket.

“Never heard that before,” he mumbles back. I clench and unclench my fists, still trying to convince myself that this is no big deal. Just an everyday run to town. My vision is becoming blurry, and no matter how many times I frantically blink I can’t get rid of the storm clouds that are waiting to pour. Blaine pulls me into a hug, resting his head on top of mine, as his arms hold me tighter than I’ve ever allowed them to. I wrap my arms around him in return. This is no time to pretend that I don’t want him to touch me. This might be the last chance I ever get to be hugged by him like this. “I can’t believe you’re crying and it’s not because you’ve eaten a five year-old, I feel special.”

“I’m sorry, I know it’s stupid to be crying right now. You’re not dead and yet I’m already mourning you.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty morbid. But I’m just pumped to prove you wrong.”

“Please do.”

Were still intertwined, and my mind is racing trying to come up with some elegant, awe-inspiring thing to say just in case it’s the last thing that I ever get to tell him. I can’t think of anything. It’s rather frustrating, and I refuse to break this hug until I come up with something legendary.

“Blaine,” I whisper, still uncertain of what I’m about to say even though I’ve already starting speaking, “I just want to say before I go that...Even though I promised that I would never forgive you for what you’ve done, I do. Forgive you, I mean. I feel guilty saying it knowing just what it is that I’m pardoning you for, but I had to let you know. I’m willing to break my promise.”

I think that I hear him sniffle, but his head is still resting on mine and I can’t see his expression. When he next speaks, though, he definitely sounds like he’s about to cry. “That...Thank you, Liv. Honestly, I don’t even know what to say. That kinda means the world to me,” he laughs before adding, “I know that I’m going to regret being so sappy.”

“I like it,” I whisper, dropping my arms and reluctantly stepping away from the embrace.

He ever-so-gently cups my chin in his hand, in a motion so swift it catches me off guard. His lips are pressed against mine before it even registers in my mind what it is that he’s doing. Everything within me screams no, everything within me wants me to pull away. Everything excluding my heart, that is. My heart yearns for my mouth to stay right where it is. My heart thinks that maybe it’d even be okay to let my mouth crack open just a tiny little bit so that he can slip his tongue inside of it. My heart is an idiot that doesn’t even know how to beat correctly anymore. I refuse to listen to it. After permitting my heart to win the battle for a moment, I use both of my hands to push against his shoulder, forcing him away from me before my heart has the chance to convince the kiss to turn French.

His eyes are closed, his cheeks are wet, and I know that he’s madder at himself right now than even I am. He covers his face with his hands to hide it from me, like were playing peek-a-boo or something. His breaths hitch. I want to pull him back into a hug. I want to press my lips back against his.

“I ruined it. Damn it, I ruined it,” his voice is so soft I can barely hear him.

This isn’t how it’s going to end. I’m not going to walk out of here and have this be the way that we part. Maybe he is the one who ruined it, but somehow I have to fix this.

“No,” I whisper, “Blaine, stop, look at me.” He drops his hands and meets my eyes with wet baby blues. “That wasn’t okay, but it doesn’t matter. You didn’t want to die without kissing me. I get that. I’m appealing.”

He smiles just a teeny-tiny bit and I feel so, so very relieved. Thank the heavens. “But I am so, so sorry,” he mumbles, looking away from me again. “I know that you’ve told me countless time not to be a bastard like that, I’m just extremely...”

“Blaine, it’s fine. Listen, I need to get going, because I don’t want it to get dark while I’m out.”

“Okay.”

“It’s okay.”

“Sure.”

“It really is.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Blaine! It’s okay! Lock the door, keep your gun loaded and next to you. I’ll...see you in a few hours.”

“Okay.” His expression now kind of reminds me of the one that he had when he realized that Peyton and I were friends. He looks like a kicked puppy, and it makes me feel fairly sick inside.

Maybe I’m the one who ruined things.

I leave without saying anything else, and man do I regret it.

* * *

 

**Thank you for reading this chapter! And thank you for the kudos and comments so far, I really appreciate them.**


	4. A Runaway Running Away

I have a bagged brain and bated breath. The door is closed, the bloody inscription still there, but everything else seems rather normal.

I can barely dare to open my mouth. I’m terrified of not receiving an answer. “Blaine!” I finally will myself to shout.

Nothing happens. Nothing.

And then, all of a sudden the door just nonchalantly swings open, and there he is holding it open for me. “Blaine!” I shout again, this time for a completely different reason. I can't contain my relief, it’s flooding out of me and I’m afraid that I’m going to start crying again.

“Hey, look, Liv; guess who’s not dead!” he smiles at me, but keeps his distance.

We both keep our distance, and I don’t at all know why. He’s alive; how am I not hugging him right now? He’s alive! Liv, hug him! What are you doing!?

Fool.

“I was so worried. I took forever, I can’t believe that they didn’t come in here. That’s amazing!” My hands start shaking, and it suddenly dawns on me that I’m currently holding a brain. I tear the bag open and sloppily shove bloody brain bits into my mouth like the monster that I am.

"You're sort of leaving me with no choice but to say I told so, here."

He's so close, there's only three footsteps between us, but it feels like three million miles. My gut is churning with emotions even as I stuff it full of cerebral cortex. His eyes are still the same blue that they've always been, but despite that he's alive and well, I can't help but feel that they've lost a bit of their shimmer.

"Yeah, go ahead. You deserve to say it. I guess I was just being overdramatic..."

"Honestly, you're a drama queen," he whispers, smiling half-heartedly again. "Well...um, it's pretty late so..."

He's right, it was almost pitch black by the time I was walking into the apartment building, but I know that he's just trying to use the time of day as an excuse to not have to talk to me anymore. I hate that. He's being ridiculous.  If anyone is a drama queen here, it's definitely him.

I nod my head, knowing that it'd be no use to try to argue with him about this. If he wants to set fire to our relationship just because it isn't of the nature he thought it was, that's his problem. "Oh yeah, I guess that It is...Well then, goodnight, Blaine." I wave to him awkwardly, and he mirrors the gesture.

"Night', Liv."

He disappears into Peyton's room. The room that he hasn't even slept in for a week. I stand in the living room with bloody hands, staring at the door to that bedroom like I can open it telepathically if I try hard enough. Going into my room now would be pointless. I'm obviously not going to be able to fall asleep tonight, and maybe I'll never be able to fall asleep again. Because, the cure for my insomnia is out of my reach. Because, the cure for my insomnia is in love with me.

* * *

Life has been disgustingly dull lately. I don't even know what to do with myself 90% of the time. Wasting time used to make me feel like a waste of space, but now effectively blowing away empty hours is an accomplishment in its own right.

I've been reading a lot, because that's really the only thing I can do. I had pretty much already read all of the books in the apartment before the apocalypse came, but now I think I've gone cover to cover ten times per book. I’ve been trying to accumulate more by selecting a few whenever I go scavenging for food, but books are heavy and it doesn’t ever really feel worth the effort to haul them around. It’s become beyond tedious to try to concentrate on perusing stories that seem so trivial to me now.

Blaine has read a few of the books, too, but I don't think he's ever been much of a bookworm. He seems to have an innate hatred for the novels, stronger even than my own loathing. We tried to form a “book club” a few weeks ago, but with only one copy of each book it just wasn’t working out.

He’s been reading a lot more than he usually does in the last couple of days. He started rereading _Les Misérables-_ which is apparently his favorite book for whatever reason-while I was out looking for brains, and the fact that he’s already a quarter of the way through it is a tad alarming. I know that he’s using the book as an excuse to not have to talk to me too much. Our friendship is on thin ice, and I think he’s just as terrified as I am of it cracking. To him, the best way to avoid saying the wrong thing is to avoid saying anything at all. But him not saying anything at all is what’s causing the fissure.

This brain I’m on probably isn’t helping either. All that I know is that it’s the brain of a teenager, and an almost abnormally hormonal one at that. My emotions are out-of-whack and everything that Blaine does somehow feels like a very personal attack against me. Luckily I’ve managed to keep from being too vocal about my amplified feelings, but my heart can never seem to evade them.

It’s been two days since he kissed me and I’m already losing my mind.

It’s so stupid. It was just an innocent little kiss, and yet the consequences keep spiraling on irrevocably.

Blaine is sitting next to me on the couch right now. He’s reading, of course. I’m not. I’m not doing anything. It’s probably half an hour that I’ve been sitting here, periodically glancing at him, trying to sort through my thoughts and strategizing ways in which I can eloquently convert them into words. I know that I’m making him uncomfortable, every now and again his eyes flicker away from the pages and he catches me intently watching him. He’s trying to pretend he doesn’t notice, and somehow that both bothers and delights me.

“Blaine.” I think I might be ready to speak, I really do.

He drops the book facedown on his lap, and finally acknowledges my presence. “Yeah?”

“We can’t go on like this.”

“Oh?”

“You’re being ridiculous and I can’t take it anymore.” This is bad. I guess I should have thought about this speech even longer, because that is so not what I had intended to say. He looks like he just took a sip of bewilderingly bitter coffee. The distaste is palpable. He doesn’t say anything, though. Maybe he’s hoping that I too am aware of how terribly wrong that came out and will have enough sense to correct myself. Fortunately, I am aware. “I didn’t do anything to deserve having you act like such a child.” Wait, that’s not right. I didn’t mean that, well I mean, I did...but I didn’t mean to actually say it. I think my filter is broken. I’m puking out words like I ate a bad batch of moody brains. I have brain-poisoning. Great.

“I’m...” He’s shaking his head at me, his mouth slightly agape as he draws in a deep breath to try to calm himself down. He needs that breath, because he’s noticeably furious. “Stop acting like it’s my fault and my fault alone that we kissed. You gave me way too many mixed signals, so excuse me if I couldn’t decipher each and every one of them. Crying on my shoulder? Having me sleep in your bed? Sobbing because you thought that I was going to die? So I kissed you. My mistake.”

His argument has a decent amount of legitimacy, and I don’t like that. I like placing all of the blame on his shoulders, and I don’t want to admit that the kiss didn’t come out of the blue.

All of my actions, they stemmed from a place of friendship. Never once did I think that his lips pressing against my lips and his tongue circling my tongue as his bare skin brushed against my bare skin, never once did I think that any of that sounded the least bit pleasant. That was all him. I just wanted to be platonically blissful.

Right?

Wrong.

Still though, I can’t ever admit to it. Not after he’s already admitted to it. Not when I know that if we were to both confess to it there’d be a total shift in the dynamic of our relationship. There’d be a quake even worse than the one we’re knee-deep in now. We’d be so close to an impossible fantasy world that would always be out of our reach just enough that we couldn’t quite grasp it. It’d be like the mess I had with Major for a handful of days. The mess where we tried to deny the fact that a romance between a zombie and a human is only suitable for a post-apocalyptic production of “Romeo and Juliet”.

Blaine is the one who can’t understand this. His naivety is what’s dragging us down.

“How could it possibly be my fault that you’re so desperate for someone to love you that you see desire in every little thing that I do!?” I know that it’s the brain speaking, but my incomprehensible fury has already flown so far that I’m not quite sure how to put a stop to it. Dumping my frustrations in his lap feels cathartic to me, and the brain isn’t allowing me to care how it makes _him_ feel. His expression clearly states that I’ve crossed the line. Guilt clashes with anger in the pit of my stomach and I have no way of knowing which wins.

He sits silently for a moment, gently nibbling at his lip like he’s trying to restrain himself from both sobbing and shouting. “I know that you have the brain of a real asshole in your gut right now, but honestly the fact that you’d...” He drifts off, sighing loudly as he stands up off of the couch, abandoning _Les Misérables_ in his wake. “You’re the one who’s desperate, Liv. You’re the one who became all buddy-buddy with the person you claimed to hate most just because you can’t find any of your actual friends.” He starts walking into Peyton’s room, but pauses to glance back over his shoulder at me and say, “If our relationship really only means something to you because it’s the only one you have in your life right now, you can just go right on ahead and screw yourself.”

He slams the door behind him, and I’m left sitting on the couch with no choice but to play our conversation over and over again in my head. I’m so livid I can hardly even see straight. He completely went off the handle and yet again interpreted everything I said wrong. I never said that I was just being his friend because I had no other options to choose from! He’s the asshole!

I can’t stay here. Not with him in the next room over. I need some serious space right now or I’m going to lose it. Every fiber of my being wants to march in his room right now so that I finish what we just started, so that I can keep the fire burning. The rational part of my mind, the part that’s actually wholly mine, is aware of what a terribly awful idea that is and knows that I’m going to have to take some serious precautions to prevent myself from putting that plan into action. What I need right now, more than anything is some fresh air and a clear head.

I hurriedly set to lifting the loveseat off of the table and pushing the table away from the door. I step out into the hallway, banging the door shut with as much decibels as I can muster so that he’ll hear it and know to come out and put the blockade back in position. I dash to the staircase and take them two steps at a time as I make my way down to the lobby.

_“You can’t leave, where do you think that you’re going to go? Huh? Have fun living as a vagrant, maybe it will make you realize how damn much we do for you!” A middle aged woman is standing on the edge of her porch, her face blurred by the rising illumination of the sun._

_“You don’t do nothing for me! You never have!” The woman is out of my field of vision now, and all that I can see are my feet pounding against the ground as they fly beneath me. My breaths grow louder and louder as I run, but still I don’t slow down._

I snap out the vision and find myself teetering in-between the last step and the one above it. I know what the vision means, I’ve eaten the brain of a runaway and here I am, running away; still though, I carry myself outside into the crisp morning air. The world is as silent as ever, but for once I appreciate the tranquility of its hollowness. I needed to come out here, even if the decision to do so wasn’t entirely my own. It’s still definitely helping me to get a grip, so I’m hoping that the end justifies the means.

I hang around outside, burning daylight and taking in oxygen, for who knows how long. I keep reminding myself that I need to go back inside, but repeatedly procrastinate actually doing it.

Soon I’ve taken enough breaths to know how wrong I was. To know that I’m the one that needs to apologize. I’m not looking forward to it. Not at all.

I resign myself to my fate and slowly shamble back inside of my building. When I make the trek back up the stairs, I don’t take the steps two at a time. I arrive at my door still wishing that I could turn back around and never stop running. I brace myself for the unavoidable avalanche of resentment coming my way, before screaming, “Blaine!” for the millionth time.

The door promptly swings open and I hurriedly step through it while trying to rehearse my apology in my head a few times before I actually vocalize it in order to avoid my previous errs. I turn to face Blaine, finally ready to take the bull by the horns. “I’m...” I stop. Because the person that I am speaking to, it most definitely is not Blaine. I’m so shocked I don’t even have the ability to process what’s happening around me. I just stand there blubbering like a fish out of water, staring at the man and waiting for the universe to make sense again.

The man (tall, muscular, notably not alive) simply smiles at me. His skin is very nearly the same color as his teeth. “Did you see our message? The one on the door? It’s been there for a while, so I’m sure that you did. Kinda wonder why you didn’t do nothing about it, though.”

Finally, I remember the existence of my tongue and sharply spit out, “Where the hell is he?”

“Dead.”

I’m not really sure what I’m experiencing here. There’s this feeling in my chest like everything inside of me has been ripped to shreds and the damage is far too great for it to ever stand a chance at healing. I’ve felt this feeling before, but I’m not really sure if I’ve ever felt it quite like this. I think that it honestly might kill me, and I’d be entirely okay with that.

The man, the monster, is still smiling at, and just as I’m about to go into full-on zombie mode and tear him into bits so that he looks just like the inside of me feels, he whispers a single word: “Kidding.” It’s odd, but I find that I now want to butcher him even more than I did before. “But you should have seen the look on your face, girl!” I know that I can’t murder him until he tells me what I need to know, but I’m not really sure if I can wait that long.

“Where is he?” I repeat. I’m still terrified and sick to my stomach, ten seconds away from vomiting, with worry, but it’s a fantastical relief to be able to worry. To worry is to have hope.

He points behind him, to Peyton’s bedroom. The door is shut and I sidestep him so that I can get to the knob and yank it open. There’s two men standing by the other side of the door, and they’re both armed with pistols. They’re looking at me with these startled expressions like I’m some unexpected guest they didn’t cook enough pot pie to serve. Despite their showy little guns I sidestep them too, and crawl onto the bed, because that’s where _he_ is. Blaine.

He’s unconscious, and the pillow his head is resting on is soggy with blood. I slink closer to inspect the injury and sure enough, they’ve pistol-whipped him. They couldn’t have done it very hard, or the gash would be much more severe, but there’s every chance in the world that he could have a concussion and if it goes untreated...I’m getting ahead of myself. The last thing I should concern myself with is a possible concussion when we’re in a room of hostile zombies that broke in just so they could...could what? Wait...why isn’t he dead? I mean, of course, I’m glad that he isn’t, but it makes no sense. He’s bleeding from the head and they have to be hungry, so how tempting must this be to them? What are they trying to accomplish by postponing cracking his skull open? Why were they waiting for me to come home?

The first zombie, the one I’ve sworn to murder, walks into the room and waves at me. “As you can see you don’t get to call the shots here. We have the manpower, and the gun power, so if you want don’t to watch your friend here have his skull shattered, I’d suggest not trying anything.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” I mumble, subconsciously positioning myself in front of Blaine. “Hurry up and tell me whatever it is you that you want from me.”

He pauses at the edge of the bed for a moment, but then he moves to the side of it and keeps walking closer and closer. “Ten brains,” he says, finally towering over me like he’s wanted to be for the last thirty seconds that he’s been strolling forward.

“That’s impossible.” I shake my head, and bend over Blaine, to make certain that I stand the best possible chance of protecting him should things take a turn. Even if worst comes to worst, I have a plan.

The weaponless zombie, grabs me by my right shoulder and my left wrist and forces me off of the bed. I try to resist, but he overpowers me more easily than I’d like to admit. “I know what you’re thinkin’, and I’m putting a stop to that idea right now.” Crap. I’m too far away from Blaine to touch him now, meaning I’m too far from Blaine to scratch him. I never claimed that it was a good plan. But it was _a_ plan, which is a whole hell of a lot more than I have now. Even having to turn Blaine into a zombie in order to taint his brain would be preferable to our current situation. “I told you not to try anything, are you trying to get him killed?”

“I didn’t do anything,” I mutter, despite knowing that he cares more about my intentions than he does about what I do. I pull my wrist out of his grasp and take a step back away from him.

“You’re not being too accommodating neither, though,” he mutters, dropping his hands to his sides and shaking his head, “Sorry, but you don’t have any other options. You bring us ten brains within the next three days or we _will_ eat his.”

I know that I need to think of a way to worm myself out of this, because settling on this deal with them would be ridiculous. I’d might as well tell them to just go ahead and kill him now, because there’s no way that I’ll be able to find ten brains in a mere seventy-two hours. That’s a pipe dream for sure. “Why ten?” I question, “Two is also greater than one, no need to be so greedy.”

“No way. The brains you’ll be bringing us will be some rank trash you scoop up off the street. What we’ve got here is a totally fresh brain with the added bonus of being able to kill a guy.” He grins at me as he says it, and I know that he wants to see my reaction to his cruelty, so I take care to keep my façade as apathetic as possible. “He’s definitely worth ten trash brains, if not more.”

“Fine.” He’s right, I have no other options. They’re the ones in control and all I can do is shine their shoes and hope I do a good job of it. “Give me more than three days.”

“Ah, well. Maybe if you go in the other bedroom with me and have some fun, I’ll think about it.” He winks, and I vomit in my mouth a little bit. I love Blaine, but there’s no way I would ever sell myself like that. Not for anyone.

I’m about to open my mouth to tell him off, but one of his lackeys yells out first. “Hey, Isaac, what about me and Thomas? You can’t just go making deals by yourself!”

Isaac, the loudmouth who’s obviously nominated himself their leader, looks at me and frowns. “Too bad, looks like I can’t compromise with ya’ hottie. You have three days.”

“Fine,” I repeat, “There’s no way in hell I would have taken that deal, anyway.”

He just laughs and looks over at Blaine, “Yeah, I bet your boyfriend wouldn’t like that, would he? Especially not since he can’t have any fun with you himself.”

I want to say something snarky about Blaine not being my boyfriend, but I keep silent knowing that there’d be no point. Who cares is this asshole thinks that we _are_ post-apocalyptic Romeo and Juliet? So I simply respond by asking, “At least let me treat his injury. I don’t want to go through all the work of getting the brains only to come back to find that you halfwits let him bleed to death.”

The one who hasn’t said anything yet, the one named Thompson or something, nods his head at me. “That sound fair, we should let her.”

Isaac shrugs, “Fine, but if you scratch him we will shoot both of you.”

“Understood,” I mumble as I dash out of the room and into the bathroom across the hall. I open the medicine cabinet and grab a bottle of Tylenol. I also grab latex gloves and gauze from underneath the sink along with a towel that I then take to the kitchen to wet with half of the water from one of the dozens upon dozens of water bottles I scavenged when Armageddon hit the fan. I take the remaining water in the bottle with me so he can have it when he wakes up. While I’m in the kitchen I spare a glance to the front door, the loveseat and table are exactly how I left them when I stormed outside. I should have screamed at him to rebuild the barricade. How ignorant was I to think that he’d be able to hear me leaving and immediately set to moving the furniture into place. I’m unbelievable.

I hurry back into the room and sit down next to him on the bed, and gently wipe the dried blood off of his head with the cloth. His wound is still very slowly oozing blood, so I firmly press the gauze up against it. I stay in that position for a few minutes, the three zombies just wordlessly watching me like I’m about to perform a miracle or something, and then I Blaine’s eyes start to slowly flicker open. I quietly gasp, a smile tugging at the corners of my lips. Thank God. The amount of time he was unconscious was fairly concerning.

His eyes finally fully open and he stares up at me blankly. He’s clearly out of it, but I’m more than content to pretend that I’m still stopping the outpour of blood for as long as it takes him to get oriented again. “Blaine,” I whisper, positioning myself so that he can see me.

“Liv,” he slurs nearly incoherently. Well, at least he isn’t amnesic...again.

His eyes start to close again, and I frantically shake his arm. “Don’t sleep,” I whisper, “You need to stay awake now.”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, trying to force his eyes open again. I wonder if I’m down to seventy-one hours now or if they haven’t started the countdown yet. I want to stay here and make sure he’s okay, but I also can’t risk wasting precious brain collecting time. I can’t leave his side quite yet, but I know that I’ll have to soon.

I open the Tylenol and carefully prop his head enough so that he can take a couple without choking on them. I take the cap off of the water bottle and coax him into drinking a few sips.

“As touching as this is, I’m getting pretty sick of having to keep an eye on you. Your seventy-two hours is ticking, hon’.” I knew that one of the corpses would speak up eventually, but yet I’m still disheartened now that it’s actually happened. I don’t want to leave. Not at all. I know that there’s every chance in the world that I will fail at keeping up my end of the deal and thus fail in my mission to keep Blaine alive. I know that I need to stay focused on my goal and not think of the nightmare that will come to fruition if I don’t meet it, but watching Blaine doing his best to regain cognizance is really just breaking my heart. Him being hurt was a hundred percent my fault, and if he dies it will be a hundred percent my fault too. I couldn’t hate myself more right now, but that hatred is also something that I don’t have time to dwell upon.

Blaine seems even more confused now, I know that it’s because he hadn’t realized that we weren’t alone. He has no clue of the danger that he’s in. “Okay,” I mutter, gritting my teeth as I glance towards Isaac, “I’ll leave.” I immediately turn my attention back to Blaine. “I need to go outside,” I whisper, my voice much gentler than it was previously. “I promise that I’ll be back, though. I’m so sorry.” I pause for a moment before giving in to the itch to repeat myself, “I’m so sorry.”

He looks at me with a slightly less blank-slated expression. I think that he may be becoming more alert now. Good. “Liv,” he slurs again, “Be careful.”

I’m not sure why that simply phrase makes me want to cry more than anything else happening right now. I know that he isn’t aware of what’s going on, but the fact that he would say that proves that he hasn’t started to hate me, which is a huge relief. I impulsively kiss his cheek and nod my head. “Will do.”

* * *

**Thank you for reading this! And again, thank you so much for the kudos and comments.**

 

 

 


	5. A Lucky Break

Somehow I’ve wound up back at the graveyard. I knew what would greet me upon my arrival, but I came anyway. It was a stupid idea, but I didn’t know where else to go. Foraging for ten brains sounds like it would take much, much too long. It practically takes me ten hours to find one brain, so the most that I could end up with if I took that route is seven, and honestly I doubt that I’d even be able to do that well since the pickings are getting more and more slim by the second.

So the graveyard was my next plan of action. Back before armed zombies were patrolling it I could have dug up ten graves easy if I was willing to break my back and faint from exhaustion. Now, though, not a chance. The most that I could end up with if I take this route is a big ugly zero.

I don’t have a plan C. I’ve been racking my brain for one, but I’m stumped. I think that I’m cracking under the pressure. My mind is spiraling out of control knowing that it alone bears the responsibility of having to come up with a way to save Blaine’s life.

Maybe if I drive to a further cemetery, one that I haven’t been to yet. I know that it’s a sucky idea, all of the cemeteries that I’ve been to so far have been in the same state as this one, but at least it’s an idea. I find a car parked out on the street next to the graveyard with its driver-side door open, its keys are on the cement, and its seat is soaked through with blood. I count myself morbidly lucky, grab the keys, and hop inside. I could have taken my own car, but you see, the problem there is that I left my keys in the apartment, so that’s a definite no-go.

I’m not sure how to get to any other cemeteries, and GPS died with the internet, so I’m completely lost. This plan is just getting worse and worse. Not knowing what else to do I start driving, burning through gasoline, which has now become quite a rare commodity, second only to brains.

I drive aimlessly for a bit before I spot some zombies walking along the side of the road. I pull over and roll my window down, because asking for directions in the midst of the end of the world is an unusual, but necessary inconvenience. “Hey, do you know where any graveyards are!?” I shout out to them.

It’s a couple, they’re both fairly young, maybe even younger than me. They’re holding hands. They smile at me with a warmth that I didn’t know zombies were capable of emitting. “Yeah! There’s one just up the road a bit, I think you just need to turn right at the next turn, actually.”

Okay. Extraordinarily friendly zombies just gave me directions and I am apparently very close to my destination, maybe things are going my way. Actually, it’s suspicious how smoothly things are going. I turn right. Sure enough, there it is. Rows and rows of graves and an army of platinum blonds packing heat wandering around in-between them. I retract my previous statement. Nothing is ever going to go my way.

I get out of the Subaru anyway, because I’ve come this far, so I might as well. I walk towards one of the zombie guards with my hands in the air to show them that I’m not going to try to wrestle them for their gun or pull out one of my own. “Hey!” I call to get their attention. They spin around to face me and are about to say something, but before they get the chance to, I’m being assaulted.

Or am I being hugged? Yes. It is a hug, isn’t it? What the hell?

I push my way out of my mystery embracer’s arms to get a view of their face and find that it’s a bleach blond version of Ravi Chakrabarti. “Liv!” he shouts, throwing his arms around me again, “I can’t believe you’re here! It’s absolutely amazing to see you!” 

“Ravi!” I squeal back, so shocked I’m unable to contain my glee or come up with anything more clever to say. I notice that he has a holster with a small revolver peeking out of it at his side, but I say nothing of it. For now, it’s insignificant. Just like, for now, the fact that he’s among the living-dead is insignificant.

“You look well,” he says happily, finally dropping his arms back to his side, “I’m so glad.”

“I never thought I’d be so relieved to see that you’re a zombie,” I reply, laughing dryly, but smiling genuinely.

“Ah, yes. It’s rather tragic how much I am not pulling off this look, but hair dye has become rather frowned upon within the zombie community as of late for some reason.”

“It’s because looking like a human is a bad thing now.”

“Oh is that it? That makes sense.”

I finally can’t contain myself anymore, I have to spit out the question that I’ve been metaphorically dying to ask. “Where are Major and Peyton?”

His smile drops for a moment, and my heart goes right along with it. He quickly forces the corners of his lips to leap back up, however. “They’re both perfectly healthy. We’re all staying together at a little house nearby, I’ll take you there in a jiffy if you would like.” I can’t help but wonder why he frowned if that’s the truth.

I swallow my nerves, nod my head enthusiastically, and say, “I would love that.”

“Great, come along, then,” he starts to walk away, and I quickly grab his wrist to stop him.

“I would love that, but I need to ask you something first.”

“Sure, go ahead. What is it, Liv?” he questions, tilting his head to the side.

“You’re one of the guards, or whatever, here, right?” I begin.

His smile fades a bit again and he nods. “Yes, and I know how awful this must look to you, but I assure you that I have my rea...”

“No, I get it. It’s fine, Ravi. It’s almost impossible to get brains now, so it’s actually not too bad of an idea.” Of course, I resented each and every one of these sort of zombies and accused them of destroying the system a few weeks ago, but I can’t help but let Ravi slide. I trust that he really does have a good reason for this, but right now that reason is also insignificant. “How many brains are you allowed?”

“One a week,” he answers, “Which I have to split between Peyton and me.” The subtle suggestions laced in the spaces between his words sting me, but I can’t think them over right now. The connotations are currently too heavy to confront.

I have bigger problems. One brain a week...That’s awful. Well, no, that’s actually much better than how I’ve been eating lately, but it’s nowhere near ten brains every three days. “Is there any way you could get an advance on that?”

He grins at me, “Ohhhhh, I see. You’re hungry, aren’t you? I’m sure that I can appeal for a brain for you.” He pauses before adding, “Actually, I think I might have a bit left of the one I got last week if you’re interested.”

I sigh and shake my head. “No thanks, Ravi. I’m not hungry...I, well I have a huge problem.”

“A huge problem?” he looks concerned and leans towards me a bit, as if expecting me to whisper some shocking secret into his ear.

“I need ten brains.”

“What!?” he yells, his eyes widening and his head shaking back and forth emphatically. “Liv that’s absolutely ridiculous! I’m sorry but there’s no way I can get you that many!”

“Yeah...I figured,” I mumble, breaking away from his gaze.

He calms down and asks, “Why on earth do you need ten brains, anyway? Are you running a zombie orphanage?”

”Ever since everything happened I’ve been living with Blaine, trying to protect him, because you know, he’s still human...But today I got pissed at him and I left the apartment without telling him to lock the door and he was attacked by three zombies with guns who are going to kill him if I don’t bring them ten brains within the next...I don’t know, I guess I probably have like seventy hours left.” I spill it all out so quickly, that I’m not even certain that he understood me, but my emotions are starting to arise within me and I don’t feel capable of repeating myself if he didn’t.

Ravi’s mouth is gaping open in shock. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, this isn’t something I’d make up,” I answer, nodding my head.

“That’s insane!” he remarks, clapping his hand over his mouth and slowly shaking his head in utter disbelief.

“Yeah...well. I don’t know what to do, Ravi. I really don’t.” I feel tears starting to roll down my cheeks, and I rapidly reach to wipe them away, hoping that he didn’t notice them, or at the very least will have the tact not to mention them.

“I swear that I’m not trying to be insensitive, but what happened?”

“Huh?”

“I thought you hated him, but now you’re crying over him? What happened?” Ah, he didn’t have the tact not to mention my tears. That’s unfortunate.

I make a noncommittal noise and shrug my shoulders. “To be honest, a lot.”

He stares at me for a moment, silently picking me apart, then he places his hand on my shoulder. “Alright, well why don’t you come along home with me and we can tell Peyton and Major about this predicament and see if they have any ideas about how to get out of it, sound good?”

In response I simply nod my head while trying _and_ failing to smile.

* * *

They have a nice place. It’s one of those quaint little things I’d expect to see on the cover of a gardening magazine at my doctor’s office, back before I was dead and stopped scheduling my yearly physicals, that is. It also looks like it belongs in France. It’s made out of brown bricks and has this long roof with big points peaking above the front door and the window next to it. The front door itself is a vibrant maroon tone and made of wood. As for the front lawn, it’s a tad yellowed but random flowers spring up from it anyway. I really love the look of this place. Maybe I should have relocated to somewhere as nice as this when doomsday waved hello.

Ravi fishes some keys out of his pocket and unlocks the door. I guess they don’t feel the need to barricade their door, because he just steps right on inside. I’m jealous.

I follow him into the house to find a carefully decorated living room. The floor is composed of oak boards and the couches are a smooth black leather. As I’m looking around, I see Peyton come into the room out of the corner of my eye. “Liv?” she whispers, her apparent shock more than evident in her voice.

“Hi, Peyton,” I say, waving at her cheerfully. I take a few steps forward until I’m close enough to pull her into a hug. “I’m so glad that you’re okay.” She’s pulling off platinum hair much better than I had expected, but then again Peyton could probably dye her hair swamp green and still look stunning.

“Liv,” she whispers again, cozily returning the hug. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too,” I whisper back.

“How did you find us?” she asks, stepping away from me so that we can get a clear view of each other.

“Actually, I didn’t. I was just looking for a cemetery I had no idea that Ravi would be there,” I glance back over my shoulder at Ravi and smile, “It was a pleasant surprise, though.”

Ravi smiles back at me. “And here I thought you came there looking for me.”

“No such luck, sorry,” I pause for a moment, waiting for the appropriate amount of time to pass before I ask, “Hey, so where is Major?”

Peyton’s smile falls, just like Ravi’s did when I asked him a similar question. Their reactions make me uneasy. Peyton then turns to face Ravi and asks, “You did tell her right?”

“Tell me what!?” I snap. “Ravi, you said that he was okay, why would you lie!?” I feel fury swirl with anxiety within me and it leaves a sick feeling inside of my heart. If Major is dead, I swear that I am officially giving up on my life, or my life after death or what have you.

“He is fine!” Ravi states defensively, “It’s just that...”

“He took the cure,” Peyton finishes for him. “He has amnesia.”

“Right after everything went to hell he started saying that he felt ill and coughing quite a lot so I went to the morgue and got him a vat of the cure, which is actually when I wound up getting scratched, but anyway, he didn’t want to take it. Peyton and I admittedly forced him into it a bit. The options were coercing him into giving up his memories or allowing him die. We rightfully chose the former.” Ravi flashes a look of remorse my way. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, it’s just that you seemed to be in the midst of a predicament already and I couldn’t bear to make things any harder on you...”

“Thanks, Ravi,” I whisper, “I mean...of course I’m not okay right now, not by any stretch of the word, but the three of you are alive, and that’s still more than I had dared to hope for.” Amnesia. It’s weird how something so awful seemed such a blessing to me until this moment. Blaine losing his memories, I still think that was for the best, but this, this definitely isn’t.

“It will be okay, Liv. It’s not as bad as you would imagine, really,” Peyton soothes. She grants me a nervous smile, and then slips her arm around mine. She leads me out of the room and we silently walk arm-in-arm through a narrow hallway with Ravi trailing behind us. It feels like a funeral procession. She suddenly stops in front of a door and turn to face me. “Ready?” she questions.  I nod, she opens the door, and there he is.

Major.

He’s sitting on the bed, reading a book, and he glances up from his page as we walk in. “Major, this is Liv,” Peyton says, her tone light and welcoming. She sounds so cheerful that the eggshells she’s walking on are beyond blatant.

Major’s mouth cracks open with trepidation for a moment, but then he smiles at me, a good ol’ classic Major Lilywhite smile. It’s so wonderful to see that smile again that I begin to feel as if maybe just maybe nothing else matters. “Liv, it’s so nice to see you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Oh have you?” I ask teasingly. He doesn’t know me. Our first kiss at that crappy Italian restaurant that kept brining us stale bread with the hope that it would make us forget that we ordered forty minutes ago and still had yet to lay eyes on our pasta primavera, he doesn’t remember that. That night in my apartment when we rented _Edward Scissorhands_ but abandoned it halfway through because our relationship was ready to progress to the next level? Forgotten. When we met my mother for dinner and she awkwardly mentioned in-between appetizer and entrée that she would be extremely disappointed if our relationship didn’t end with rings around our fingers. And the day that he proposed to me and _put_ a ring around my finger...All gone, gone, gone. But am I going to cry? No. There’d be no point. Major is already going through enough right now, and all that my tears would do is make him to feel guilty for forgetting me, which is in no way his fault. So I just wink at him and say, “I hope that they’ve only told you good things.”

He laughs a little and nods his head. “Yeah, actually. From what I’ve heard you sound great.”

“Oh trust me, I am.” I dispose of the distance between us, and find myself sitting on the bed next to him. It feels so familiar, and makes me long for days past, but at this point I’m not quite certain what days I long for most. Sitting so close to him, though, abruptly throws me back into the throngs of reality. What am I doing? I love Major, or course I do, but right now someone else I care about is in a life or death situation. If I stay here chatting for a minute longer I won’t be able to ever excuse myself for my selfishness.

“Hey, Ravi,” I say, glancing away from Major for a moment to address him. “I really...,” I pause to collect my thoughts. I don’t’ want to sound rude, I just came here and if I leave already...I don’t want to leave them. I wish that I could stay. I don’t know where to go or how to get any brains; what benefit could come from me leaving this lovely house just to desperately wander around without any direction in mind at all?

“Yes, Liv?” Ravi asks, a look of concern washing over his features.

“I don’t...Never mind.” I feel so weak. So sick with myself. Honestly what am I planning to do? Try to live an idyllic life here with them forever and just push Blaine to the back of my mind? Pretend like I’m the one with amnesia here? Like I was never given the opportunity to save him?

Of course not. I will save him...I will, but not now. There’s nothing that I can do right now.

Ravi, though, he always seems to know what’s going on inside of me. My inner turmoils can never seem to remain inner when he’s around. “Are you thinking about Blaine?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at me.

I nod my head and Peyton becomes disturbingly panic-stricken in record-breaking time. “Wait!” she calls out suddenly, “Is Blaine dead!?”

I can’t help but smile a little as I shake my head. It feels pretty great to know that I’m not the only person in the universe who cares about his well-being. “He’s not dead, or a zombie, but he’s currently being held at gunpoint by zombies.”

“Held at gunpoint?” She looks even more shocked now, and I imagine that it’s because she’s thinking of the Blaine who singlehandedly took three men out in a blaze of gunfire and glory to save her when she was held hostage, being a captive himself.

“They want Liv to bring them ten brains in exchange for him, which will obviously be quite a lofty undertaking.” I appreciate Ravi helping me fill Peyton in on that part, mostly because I think I would start crying again if I had to be the one to do it.

“Ten brains!?” Peyton gasps, she moves to the bed and wraps her arms around me again, “We’ll help you in any way that we can, Liv, I promise.”

I feel Major’s hand on my shoulder and smile. If there’s one positive thing about Major losing his memories, I’d have to say that it’s the fact that he has no idea who Blaine is. If he did I don’t think he’d be trying to comfort me about this. “Thank you,” I whisper, fighting back tears yet again, anyway. “That means so much to me.”

Ravi keeps back, a nervous expression on his face that tells me everything I need to know. He doesn’t like the pact that Peyton just made with me much. He still hates Blaine, and likely doesn’t think him to be worth the trouble. That’s fine. He’s owed his own opinion on the matter, but if he tries to sway Peyton from helping me, we will have a problem.

“Do you have a plan?” Peyton asks.

I shake my head back and forth against her shoulder. “Nope, no plan and a three day time constraint that’s becoming more constraining by the second.”

Peyton briefly squeezes me tighter before letting go. “Don’t worry, Liv. We _will_ think of something. I refuse to let him die, not after he saved me.”

“Do you have any ideas about how we could secure ten brains?” I question, not expecting much, but figuring that it’d be a good idea to ask anyway.

Peyton looks back over her shoulder at Ravi and shakes her head. “No. Not really. Well, I mean, I have one, but it is very much an only option, final moment of sheer desperation type of plan.”

“Dig up ten graves from the cemetery and see what Ravi’s volatile little coworkers have to say about it?”

She nods her head, “Yes, actually. That is my plan.”

Ravi steps forward, swinging his arms out wildly in front of him. “Absolutely not!” he shouts. “That’s an awful idea! They would shoot all of us! They would eat Major!”

“Wait, is Major the reason that you took that job?” I ask, rising to my feet and walking over to him. Ravi shakes his head while shrugging, leaving me feel extremely conflicted. “Is he?”

“Not entirely. I mainly did it so that I could easily acquire brains for Peyton and me, but yes it does come with the added bonus of giving me the appearance of a model member of the zombie community who is most certainly not harboring a human within the walls of his home.”

“Well if we screwed things up for you here, we can always relocate. There’s plenty of graveyards you could guard at! Robbing one of them wouldn’t be so bad!”

“There’s at least five zombies there at all times, Liv! There’s no way that you would get out of that scenario alive! It simply isn’t an option.”

I don’t know what to say for a moment. I feel my newfound hope waving a white flag and curling up into a ball. Peyton, bless her heart, can’t help me. Ravi can’t help me. It’s futile. Wait...No it’s not. I think I might actually have just come up with a half-decent plan.

“Fine, it doesn’t matter. I have a better idea, anyway. Peyton, Ravi, go scavenging for street brains with me.” It could work. It could definitely work. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. I’m a fool, but at least I’ve thought of it now, and at least it has the distinct possibility of being the grand solution for which I have scoured the depths of my mind. Three zombies are better than one. Three zombies can find more brains than one.

I see Peyton smiling at me, she nods her head as our gazes meet. “I’d love to.”

I turn back to Ravi, unable to stop myself from grinning at him too. “And you?”

He rolls his eyes, but mirrors our smiles. “Count me in.”

I can hardly contain my relief and joy. Major is alive. Peyton and Ravi are alive. And Peyton and Ravi are going to help me keep Blaine alive. Everything really is going my way for once, and it’s beautiful. In a few days I’ll be able to bring Blaine to this house and together, all five of us, we’ll live an idyllic life. We really will.

I stand up and start walking to the door, but before I leave Major calls out, “Good luck out there! It was great to meet you, Liv,” he freezes, his expression clouding over with guilt, “Or, um...Nice to see you again, I mean...”

I wince. Okay, so maybe not _everything_ is going my way, but it’s still close enough. “Thanks, Major,” I say, smiling warmly at him to try to covey that I don’t want him feeling flustered over his blunder. “See you later.”

* * *

**Sorry about skipping a week! I’m behind schedule. Anyway, thanks for reading again. I love your comments and kudos, thank you all so much.**

 

 


	6. A Deadlock

The hum of the Subaru’s engine is the only sound for miles. The apartment building is finally in my line of vision, and I switch lanes to meet the curb in front of it. I sloppily parallel park before leaning over to the passenger seat to grab the over-sized paper bag I set on it. I feel Peyton’s hand on my shoulder and rapidly spin around to face her. “You sure that you don’t want me to go in with you?”

Ravi’s arm is wrapped around her waist, he squeezes it tighter as the question leaves her lips. I shake my head and fake a smile. “It’s better if I go alone.”

Her eyebrows incredulously quirk downwards as she breathes out a sulky puff of air. “Alright, but please be careful.”

Her words send a spike of déjà vu through my spine. I simply nod my head, set my hand on top of hers, and give her my traditional response to such a request, “Will do.”

I swing the car door open. “See you soon, Liv!” Ravi calls, as I step out onto the pavement.

“Yeah, see you, Ravi,” I whisper back, slamming the door closed behind me. I simultaneously take a breath and a step forward. My footsteps echo into the depths of an empty world. My second breath of outside air hitches while my second footstep falters. Somehow such a short stroll from the car to the building is so very difficult to maneuver.

I soon find my hand clutching the handle to the door of the structure, I clear my mind as I roughly tug on it. I don’t look back as I step inside, I need to keep my mind clear. I climb the staircase upwards like I’m scaling Everest, each step small for mankind, but momentous for me.

I reach the hallway, the hallway that with a few more footfalls will take me back home. The bag feels heavy on my shoulders, full to the brim with ten three-pound brains, and at least one-hundred pounds of liability. I walk on until I see the correct door, the one streaked with blood and caution. My knuckle raps against the wood as I will myself to keep my wits about me. Red-eyed rage-outs dance inside my mind as I fiddle with the revolver tucked deep within the pocket of my oversized hoodie.

The door opens, and as I’m ensnared within my abysmal memories, I am rather caught off guard. I glance away from the crimson lettering only to see Isaac’s muscular build blockading my view of all else. His shiny white teeth are peek-a-booing through the gap between his grinning lips, and it makes me want to punch those shiny white teeth right out of his bulbous yet hollow head. “I brought the goods,” I mutter, gesturing for him to step out of my way, which thankfully he adheres to.

I move past the doorframe and into my spoiled sanctuary. Without wasting another word I walk towards Peyton’s room. The door is shut, but as it does not have a lock, that doesn’t strike me as much of an obstacle. As soon as I tug the door open, I see _him._ His wrists and ankles are fastened together with ropes, but he looks no worse for the wear. Our eyes lock and I see horror held in his. “Liv!” he screams, struggling against his restraints to shift into a kneeling position, “Get out!”

I tilt my head to the side in confusion for a brief moment until my blood runs cold as a clear-cut explanation for his behavior swims through me. I hear footsteps behind me and glance back to see Isaac traipsing into the room. I grind my teeth at the face of his bright grin. “You never intended to keep this deal did you!?” I exclaim, dropping the bag of brains and fishing my revolver out of my pocket.

“Really it depended on the situation, but you coming in here alone with nothin’ but a delivery of brains and a little handgun in your pocket, why the hell would we keep the deal?”

I tense at the mention of my gun, he must have seen it the moment I walked into the apartment, and here I am clumsily pulling it out like it’s some secret trump card. I begin to glance around the room in order to fully absorb my dire situation. Thomas is on the opposite side of the room from me, he’s standing next to the bed and aiming his pistol in my direction. The other zombie, who’s name I haven’t yet, and do not care to learn, is standing on the other side of the bed, he’s closer to me, but his gun is trained on Blaine. As my eyes travel back to Blaine he shouts, “Isaac, please let her go, there’s no reason to kill her too!” My head is spinning and it takes me far longer than it should to realize that Blaine is begging for my life to be spared. Blaine and begging seem such contradictory concepts that when they clash together so suddenly, it sends me reeling. And that tiny little adverb “too” that he tacked onto the end of the sentence is enough to set my world aflame.

“She’s armed!” Isaac rebukes, rolling his eyes as if he’s put out from having to deal with a pouty child.

Blaine bites at his bottom lip and stares at me intensely. “Put the gun away, Liv.” I immediately shake my head in disbelief. He can’t really expect me to do that, surely he knows better. His eyes soften and a smile ghosts over his lips. “All that I want is for you to get out this unscathed, nothing else matters.”

I keep shaking my head growing more vehement with each passing second. I turn away from Blaine, unable to bear the pleading look in his eyes any longer. “Isaac, let him go. I’ll bring you more brains, I’ll keep bringing you brains. I’ll do anything that you want!” I feel so pitiful, but if even Blaine has resorted to begging at this point, then what choice do I have?

“I don’t want anything from you,” Isaac mumbles, placing a hand on my shoulder, “I only want him. And you know what, I am feeling a bit generous today, so if you hand me that revolver I’m willing to let you walk out of here.”

“Liv!” Blaine calls, “That’s great. You have to do it. Do it now. Hurry.”

I stare at the revolver in my hand for a moment as if considering my options, and just as I feel Isaac begin to slide his hand off of my shoulders, I aim it at his head and pull the trigger. I know that Thomas has his gun trained on me, but as Isaac’s complacent grin fades, his eyes widen, and he tumbles noisily to the ground, I find it impossible to regret my hasty actions. From the sloppy way that Thomas was holding his gun, the chances of him getting a headshot are quite slim anyway, and since in the world of the undead no other shot counts for very much, it was a risk that I’m willing to take.

I can feel myself slipping into full on zombie mode but I think nothing of it. I drop to the floor as a second gunshot echoes mine. Silence engrosses the room and I come up on all fours to see if the coast is clear and which one of my remaining foes I should take out next.

And then a scream pierces the air.

Terror shreds the fleshy organ weakly pumping my blood as it dawns on me just who it is that is screaming, but I refuse to miss a beat as I put a bullet in the head of the sucker that shot him. I hear another bullet trail mine once again and feel a sharp pain cut through my chest. I force myself to ignore the pain and put a bullet in the sucker that shot me too. I miss his head, though, but I get it on my second try and he drops to the ground like the others. Once I’ve effectively removed the “un” prefix in front of the “dead” adjective for all of them, I dash to Blaine’s side.

His hands and feet are still tied together, and his right shoulder is a mess of crimson and tiny fragments of lead. His eyes are closed and his breaths are coming out raspy. This is a ramification I hadn’t accounted for. I thought that they would both go to shoot me because I was the one who had just taken out their leader, I never thought...No, I don’t have time to regret. I run towards the bathroom across the hall to grab him gauze for the second time this week. This wound, though, is far more severe than his head injury of three days prior. I channel everything I remember about treating gunshot wounds, specifically about the infirmities caused by taking a bullet to the shoulder. The shoulder with its many peripheral nerves, branchial trunks, scapula, and subclavian artery, simply should not have a bullet carve through it.

I press the gauze firmly against the both the opening and exiting wounds, to try to stop the blood that’s started flowing out of them like a mock Niagara Falls. He flinches from my touch and makes a soft whining noise. He’s sweating a lot, and blood is already seeping through the gauze. I can feel my hands beginning to shake, and I cling onto the bottom of my jacket to force them to stop. Back when I worked in the hospital I was always so calm, I always knew just what I needed to do and how to get it done, but back when I worked in the hospital my patient was never someone I love on the very brink of going into shock.

I have to get him somewhere I can perform surgery, but yet moving him poses a serious danger in and of itself. I have no idea how to get him down five flights of stairs without a stretcher. I settle for doing the only thing that I can think to do, and lace on my arms underneath his knees, set the other behind his back, and gently lift him into the air. He’s so much lighter than I would have expected, but that may just be because being a zombie has its perks in the weightlifting department.

I manage to make it out into the hall and find myself at the edge of the staircase considering whether it is more important to descend quickly or to go at a steady pace in order to not disturb his injury. I compromise by going at a normal speed and attempting to hold his body as steady as I possibly can. His eyes are open now, so I know that he’s conscious, but his pupils are dilated and uncharacteristically hushed. “Blaine,” I whisper, just to fill the silence. I need to try to keep his mind off of the pain. His state of mind will have a veritable effect on his recovery. “I’m just taking you to the morgue so that I can treat you there.” I now recognize that saying I’m taking him to the morgue doesn’t sound at all reassuring, but I hadn’t really considered that before it was too late to stop the words from leaving my mouth. The morgue really is our best bet with the shape of world as it is. Hospitals are lacking doctors and overrun with Romeros, who have already gobbled up the brains of those too immobile to flee the confines of the facility and have become desperate for new food sources. The morgue last time I was there, however, was relatively zombie free and had most of the medical equipment that Blaine is currently in need of.

“Liv,” he whispers back, obviously straining himself with the effort, “You were amazing.”

I smile at him and step on the floor of the lobby. “I kind of was, wasn’t I?” I fall silent for a moment and feel my smile falter. “But I got you shot.”

“Irrelevant. I’m alive.” He closes his eyes again as we break out into the intrusive sunlight.

“Thank God,” I whisper, so inaudibly that I doubt he can even hear me.

Ravi and Peyton burst out of the Subaru and come running as soon as they catch sight of us through the windows. Blaine’s eyes snap open, but he seems far less surprised to see them then I imagine he would be on a good day. “Sorry, I forgot to tell you that I caught up with some old friends.”

“You also forgot the brains,” he mumbles, wincing as a shot of pain courses through him.

Oh shit. What a waste!

“Doesn’t matter,” I decide, “Your brain is the only brain that matters.” He laughs weakly, and I pull him closer to my chest, as it dawns on me yet again how much I mean it. He really has become so damn important to me that I almost hate myself for it. I need to get him into that car immediately because having him be in this much agony is probably even more excruciating for me than it is for him.

“What happened!?” Peyton asks, once she’s right in front of us.

“He was shot in the shoulder,” I inform her. “Ravi! Will you drive? We need to take him to the morgue!” I call loudly, because Ravi still hasn’t traveled too far from the car.

Ravi’s mouth falls open in horror. “He’s dead!?” he screams, lacking any and all tact.

Blaine grins an incredibly typical “Blaine grin” and I can’t help but laugh a bit as I shake my head. “No! He just needs surgery!”

“Oh!” Ravi exclaims as he makes his way to the driver’s seat.

Peyton hovers next to me as I carry Blaine to the car and set him down ever-so carefully on the back seat. I sit down next to him, letting him rest his head on my lap as Peyton scurries into the passenger seat. Ravi sets us in motion, and I begin to nervously comb through Blaine’s hair like I’m still stuck on doting father brains. He’s still clammy and his breaths are still shallow, but from his recent behavior I surmise that I’ve managed to keep him from going into shock. That’s a relief and a half.

Peyton turns around in her seat and leans back to look at him. “Ugh, Liv, what happened?” she asks, “Why did they do this to him?”

I continue running my fingers through his hair as I whisper, “They were looking to accumulate eleven brains all along.”

She takes in a gasp of air, and her eyes soften as she gazes at him. Then her eyes move back to me and she gasps once more. “Wait did they shoot you too?” 

I nod, “Yeah, twice actually, but it’s no big deal.”

“Liv has gotten shot quite a lot,” Ravi adds.

I nod again, “True.” I glance down at Blaine and smile. “Actually, this isn’t the first time you’ve been shot, either. Except last time you were a zombie and I was the one that shot you...”

“Wait, what?”

“You deserved it. You shot my boyfriend and stabbed my fiancé.” I had meant it to come out as a very twisted sort of joke, but Blaine’s eyes flicker away from mine and his eyebrows fall with distress.

“Liv, I’m...”

“Sssh, no. I know, Blaine. I didn’t mean it like that.” I wonder what’s gone wrong with my psyche that I now feel such a strong ache to baby the feelings of the man that murdered Lowell and Major. I told him that I forgave him, and apparently, I really did.

Peyton glances back over her shoulder and something about the way her eyebrows raise up irritates me. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I do know that she’s judging me. She doesn’t understand why my outlook on Blaine has done such a 180, which is reasonable, but really it’s also not any of her business.

“We’re here,” Ravi says, rolling the car to a stop.

I gaze out the window, and sure enough, we’re here. The morgue. I quickly the open the door and step outside. I consider asking Ravi or Peyton to help me carry Blaine this time around, but inexplicably decide against it and turn back towards the car so that I can gently scoop him back up into my arms. He grimaces as I move him and closes his eyes from the pain. “Sorry,” I whisper, as my feet hit the concrete once more. I spot a few wandering Romeros out of the corner of my eye and dash into the building to get him out of harm’s way. Ravi and Peyton come in after us. “Peyton, bar the door! Ravi, I’m going to need your help!” I set Blaine down on the autopsy table before scampering off to collect the necessary supplies. We may have to remove fragments of the bullet or fragments of his bones. We’ll also need to clean the wounds and stitch them up.

Once I’ve snagged all of the supplies, I meet Ravi back by Blaine’s side. Ravi has begun removing my impromptu bandages and Blaine is clenching and unclenching his left fist in pain. I don rubber gloves and hand Ravi a pair, as well.

“So...I’m guessing that there’s no anesthesia here?”

I shake my head. “Unfortunately not.”

Blaine looks mildly horrified as he gulps down air. I want to say something to set his mind as ease, but I refrain, knowing that any comforting words I could offer him would be nothing but lies.

The bullet holes are now exposed and via the glow of the flashlight that Ravi’s clutching I can see the wounds in their full gory glory. “It hit the Humerus,” Ravi immediately informs me. I have to say I’m impressed by how quickly he’s able to access it.

“Fractured?” I ask.

He leans in closer and nods his head, “Yes, I think so. Oh wait...”

“What is it?” Ravi glances at me for a moment and then back at Blaine. He shakes his head and holds a finger in front of his mouth. “Ravi,” I whisper, narrowing my eyes at him.

“I can handle it,” Blaine mutters, “Spit it out.”

Ravi casts a concerned glance at Blaine once more before whispering, “I think that there’s nerve damage.”

I bite my bottom lip and bend down to inspect the gradually trickling gouge a bit closer myself. “The auxiliary nerve...”

Ravi nods his head. “The damage appears to be rather extensive, and with our current limitations in equipment and expertise, I don’t foresee us being able to do much about it.”

“Won’t it eventually heal on its own?” My voice is shaking, and I curse myself for my lack of composure.

“A tad, perhaps, but if it is Neurotmesis a full recovery is impossible, and without proper treatment even a partial recovery is likely...unattainable.” 

“God, this all my fault,” I whisper, my vision beginning to blur with deplorable moisture.

“Liv, stop making everything about you. It gets old,” Blaine whispers, smiling at me ever-so-slightly. “It’s just an arm. I have two. You know what I only have one of though? A brain.”

“You’re seriously not trying to comfort me right now, are you?” I can feel the tears begin to roll down my cheeks and I quickly work to brush them away with the backs of my wrists.

“You’re the one who’s crying over it.” He sighs and his smile dies away. “Yeah, I’m bummed out, Liv. But like I said earlier, I’m alive and that’s hella preferable to what I expected to be by now.”

“Um...I’m trying quite hard not to interrupt, because this is Hallmark quality stuff, but we really need to clean this and you’re going to have to suture it up,” Ravi interjects.

I’m frozen for a moment, still tremendously shocked by the awful news and Blaine’s easy acceptance of it. Then I force myself to nod my head and get to work.

* * *

Blaine is asleep on the couch in the breakroom. Ravi had me move him there after we were done treating the gunshot wound because he was rightfully drained of any and all energy. None of us are sure how long we’re going to stick around the morgue, Blaine isn’t very fit for travel, but the rest of us can’t go much longer without something to eat. We’re also worried about Major being human and home alone, so I expect that we’ll be making the journey back to their house quite soon.

We’ve discussed stopping by the apartment and seeing if the bag of brains is still there. We think that it’s worth a shot, because there’s no reason why anyone else would have gone into the apartment after I left it, so the bag is more than likely still there and still extraordinarily valuable. Now that Blaine isn’t on the verge of death, it has dawned on me what a monumental screw-up it was to leave them behind.

“Hey, is this seat taken?” Peyton takes the seat across from me at the small table in the kitchenette before I have the chance to answer her evidently rhetorical question. Her eyes align with mine, but she abruptly breaks the awkward contact. “How are you?” Classic question. It’s funny how sometimes this question is so very meaningless, and sometimes, like this time, I really have to dig deep within myself to answer it correctly. How am I? I don’t even know.

“Alright, I guess.” Yeah, I dug real deep for that one. Such a wordsmith I’ve become.

“We have really had time to catch up, what with collecting the brains and everything...” I’m not quite certain what she’s trying to get at. Does she want me to ask her how she’s doing? Not to sound like an ass, but my mind is a bit too preoccupied for small-talk at the moment. Sorry.

There is one not at all small question that I have been meaning to ask her, however. “Yeah...true. And with that there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, how exactly did you become a zombie, anyway?”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and from her growing grimace I can tell that it’s because she doesn’t want to say anything.  She glances over her shoulder, to make sure that Ravi’s too far away to hear our conversation. He’s busy gathering up the ingredients for the cure so that he can finally start moving production on it forward again  the next chance that he gets, and quite possibly save the universe as a result. Peyton turns back around, seemingly satisfied by the distance between him and us, and murmurs, “I was scratched by Ravi...but you can’t tell him that I told you, okay? He was full-blown zombie and it was nothing more than an accident, but he still feels super guilty about it and I would appreciate if you don’t...”

“You have my word,” I whisper, smiling at her, as I rest my head on the palms of my hands. “Trust me, I know a thing or two about feeling super guilty, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.” Ironic, considering the reason that I feel super guilty is because I caused my former worst enemy to be shot in the shoulder. Actually, currently I don’t think that I have a worst enemy. That’s new.

Peyton smiles back at me and shakes her head. “I don’t see why you feel so guilty. It’s not your fault, and besides that this is kind of just deserts all things considered.”

“Peyton...,” I hiss, drawing out the syllables, “Don’t say that!”

Her eyes widen, she cocks her head to the side, her eyebrows raise up, and her lips purse in a sour medley of shock and distain. “Sorry, sorry. I wasn’t trying to offend you?” Not sure why she said that with an inflection at the end, but its grating under my stubby fingernails.

“He’s not the same person, Peyton. This version of him hasn’t done anything to deserve this.”

“Ok, fine. Understood, Liv.”

I calm down and take in a deep breath before sheepishly glancing at the ground. “I really didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“No it’s fine, you’re going through a lot. I get it.” She reaches her hand over the table and sets it on top of one of mine. She squeezes my hand and forces her scowl to fade back into a warm smile.

“Thanks,” I whisper, squeezing her hand in return. We fall silent for a moment, before I cut the emptiness by asking, “So, you and Ravi, how did that come about? Again, I mean.”

She laughs a little and shrugs her shoulders. “Oh, well, you know. I don’t think either of us ever really stopped being interested in the other. What with Major’s memory loss, we’ve really only had each other to lean on lately, so it was bound to happen.”

“How serious is it?” Okay, so I’m being a smidge intrusive, but now that the balls gotten rolling, so has my curiosity.

She nibbles at her bottom lip, before giving in to a grin. “Pretty serious, I think. Obviously we’ve been to fourth base and, I’ll admit that the “L” word has been involved.”

“Ooh, the “L” word!” I laugh, squeeze her hand again, and say, “I’m so happy for you two. That’s amazing. I was really rooting for you.”

“Thank you,” she replies, beaming. “I feel like such an idiot now, knowing that I pushed Ravi away because of, well, Blaine. Ugh, I’m ridiculous. Ravi is such a great guy, honestly what was I thinking?”

Okay. There’s something seriously wrong with the tailspin this conversation just took. Her words are coming out like she’s reading off of a cue card and talking about how Weight Watchers transformed her life. I mean, I’ve been sensing an ulterior motive permeating through the air like rotting cerebellum since the second she sat down, but now she’s even gone so far as to lose the subtly, and it’s just too much to keep ignoring.

“Peyton, come out and say it.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t think that I don’t know what you want me to take away from this little talk!” I slowly rise to my feet as I feel myself losing control of my humanity. I take a serious of rapid, calming breaths, hoping to tame my inner zombie as I take a step away from her.

“Liv, I just don’t want to see you do something you’ll regret!” she calls, standing up and chasing after me. She gently places her hand over my shoulder to stop me from putting anymore distance between us.

“I’m not going to get involved with Blaine, Peyton! That’s not even a logical concern!” I want to say that it’s illogical, because he’s alive and I’m undead, but I’m afraid that she’ll take that as, _“Oh so that’s your only reason for not getting involved with him?”,_  and that’s a mess that I neither want to make nor mop up. “You know how you said that you grew closer to Ravi because he’s the only person you had to rely on? Well that’s how I feel about Blaine, but he’s just my friend!”

She closes the gap between us and throws her arms around me. “Alright, Liv. I’m sorry. I just had to make sure. I’ve been so worried about you, and the last thing that I want is to see you get your heart broken again.”

I wrap my arms around her as well. I know that she only has my best interest in heart, as she always does, but I can handle my own relationships just fine. “And I appreciate that, Peyton, but I promise you that I’m fine, okay? My heart is fine too, though it’s not beating much...”

She pity laughs at my lame attempt at humor before releasing me. “Really, I think that it’s good that you two are friends, though.” I don’t doubt that, but as I cast a glance across the room to where Ravi is diligently organizing the zombie blood and urine samples of days past, I can’t help but wonder if he thinks that it’s a good thing too. That, on the other hand, I do very much doubt.

* * *

 

**Super sorry about taking a month to update. I really have no good excuses. I just finished watching BtVS, and I’m kind of more than a little obsessed with it at the moment...Plus I’ve written up like 5 dramatically different versions of chapter 10 and it’s taking me forever to figure out which one I want to go with, which has made it so that the stock of chapters I had built up before I started posting is almost gone and I haven’t added to that stock at all since I started posting, and that’s a tad alarming. Oh well, at least the new season is starting soon.**


	7. A Death in the Family

“Wow, you weren’t lying when you said that Seattle was looking more and more like Blockbuster post Redbox with each and every passing day!”

“I don’t remember phrasing it like that.”

“Well you should have, because I think that you just said something dreadfully dull like, “it’s really quiet out there lately.”

“Right, well, I’ll remember to start using more analogies about defunct companies, since you enjoy them so much.”

“Good, I appreciate that.”

Blaine is resting his head on my shoulder, and while part of me knows that I should feel annoyed, the other part of me thinks that that first part is an immature child. Who cares if his head is on my shoulder? Okay, well maybe Ravi and/or Peyton, but who cares what they think? I have an answer to that one too, I do. Sure his shoulder is a mess, but I don’t think that the contact is in any way related to that. He wants to pretend like it is, but really he just wants to put his head on my shoulder.

Whatever. I like it there too. So sue me.

We’re on our way back to the house by the cemetery, the house where Major has been eagerly awaiting our return for three-ish days, but first we need to make a pit stop.

Ravi, the designated driver for the trip, parks us right square in front of my apartment building. Here I am, again. Luckily, this time he’s volunteered to go inside, so he yanks his door open and steps outside while I get to just stay sedentary in the back seat with Blaine.

“Don’t forget the gun!” I call after him.

Ravi nods and awkwardly waves the revolver about in the air to display it. “Present and accounted for.” He smiles and waves at Peyton. “See you all in a moment!” He lets the door slam shut and rushes into the building to-fingers crossed-bring back our bag of brains.

“I’m going to miss this place,” Blaine whispers, tilting away from me for a moment to get a view of the apartment.

I can’t help but roll my eyes. “You’re being sarcastic right?”

He smiles at me and shakes his head. “No. I mean, sure I was held hostage here...and shot here, but aside from that, this is where every good memory I have took place. It’s the only home that I can remember having.” Well done, Blaine. Trying to break my heart? Mission accomplished.

I feel the corners of my lips droop. “You’ll like Peyton and Ravi’s house too, though. It’s roomier, tidier, and no one there will try to shoot you.”

Peyton nods from the passenger seat before swiveling around to face us. “It’s true, I can vouch for the fact that no one in my home will ever shoot you.”

He snickers and rests his head on me again. “Sounds good.” I can tell from the wistful, half-hearted tone of his words that he still wishes that we could stay in this tiny apartment together just him and me. To be honest, he wasn’t wrong in saying that this place holds a lot of good memories, and maybe there’s a part of me that will miss this chapter of my life too. Still though, I am beyond thrilled to be able to turn the page and live in a beautiful house with all of my closest friends.

Ravi comes back into view as he exits the building and starts jogging back towards the car, toting a triumphantly full bag in his hands. He opens the door, grinning ear to ear as he tosses the vomit-inducing collection of rot to me. “Oh look, Christmas came early this year! Thank you, Santa! I’m so glad that you got my letter!”

He laughs as he sits back down in the driver’s seat, and starts the ignition. “I heard that you’ve been a very good kiddo this year.”

“Hmm, I don’t know about that, maybe you should check your list twice. I’m not too sure if eating people constitutes being a good kiddo.” I quickly pull the bag open and pick out a decaying, but still very much edible brain. I close the bag back up and break a chunk of mush off before handing it on over to Peyton. Blaine wrinkles his nose from the smell, but makes no effort whatsoever to scooch further away from me as I shovel bits of the reeking brain onto my tongue. He sighs before allowing his eyes to gradually batter closed. “Are you seriously going to sleep again?” He’s been drifting off a lot lately, which I find to be both disconcerting and adorable.

He nods his head against my shoulder. “Yeah, I seriously am. You should too.”

“I wish,” I scoff, “But you know that I can’t.”

His eyes flash open and he grins at me cheekily. “Really? Because now seems like the perfect time for you to catch up on sleep.” He winks at me, and finally I get the message.

I lick the remaining brain bits off of my fingers. “Maybe you’re right.”

* * *

I slept the entire drive. My neck is extremely stiff and sore from dozing with my head resting on top of Blaine’s, which also happened to make my pride every bit as stiff and sore. There’s no world in which it wasn’t worth it. Though, there is this annoying gnawing in my gut that begs the question, would I have been able to snooze next to Peyton or Ravi too, or is Blaine really the one and only surefire cure for my insomnia? I wonder if I could convince Major into letting me sleep in his bed tonight so that I can test my theory? It stings, as I walk up to the front door of Ravi’s home, that Major would probably think me an odd duck if I asked him for such a favor. He hardly even knows who I am. We’re nowhere near having re-established a sleeping-side-by-side sort of familiarity, which simply put, completely sucks.

As I float adrift in my thoughts, the door swings ajar and a cheerfully oblivious Major holds it open as the four of us trickle through it. Blaine looks genuinely shocked to see him and it dawns on me that I neglected ever getting around to telling him that my ex-fiancé (who he happens to have once upon a time stabbed to death) would be waiting at the door. I need to devise a way to casually inform him that Major has now forgotten the whole stabbing fiasco as much as he himself has.

“You’re Blaine, right?” Major asks, sticking his right hand out to him as I work to lock the door behind me.

Blaine raises an eyebrow and stares at his own inert right hand. Shit. And here I thought that this situation couldn’t get any more complicated. “Major!” I beam, running up to the two of them. “So sorry that I forgot to tell you that he’d be here, Blaine...”

Blaine shoots me a look to convey that I should, indeed, be quite sorry, but contradicts it with a sunny, “Oh, that’s no biggie. Nice to see you again, Major.”

“Right, and I also may have neglected to say that you and Major now have more in common than being the only members of “former zombies anonymous.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that Major has amnesia too.” I smile at Major and set a hand on his shoulder so that my words don’t come off as callous as I think they’re coming off as. _So much for casual._

Blaine’s mouth drops open and I think I see a hint of a grin playing at his lips. So Blaine still gets joy out of Major’s miseries. Some things never change, I suppose. “In that case, it’s great to meet you!” Yeah, I bet. If there’s anyone that benefits from Major’s memory loss, it’s him. Major can’t hate him if he doesn’t know who he is, and I can’t love Major if he doesn’t know who I am. What a win-win for Blaine.

Major smiles at him and nods his head. “Yeah, nice to meet you, too.” They both suddenly turn their attention to me, their eyes begging for me to save them from the cloud of awkward that has begun to steadily rain down upon us all.

I break under the pressure for a moment, before tugging on Blaine’s arm (his left one, I’m not an idiot) and beginning to drag him away with me. I wave goodbye to Major, as I whisper to Blaine, “Honestly you should still be resting. Doctor’s orders.” He smiles and wordlessly trudges along with me as I take him to one of the bedrooms that I’m fairly certain is currently uninhabited. Once we're both inside he kicks the door closed and walks over to the bed. He sits down on the edge and pats the spot next to him to beckon me. I comply and causally plop down next to him. "What's up?"

"Liv, why did I do all of that awful crap?" His eyes look like deep pools of crystal clear water that have been muddled by genuine confusion.

I don't like this topic of conversation, but I know that he's well aware of that, so I don't bother with vocalizing it. I sigh and shake my head. "How should I know?" I shrug. "I didn't know you that well. The only interactions we ever had were extremely hostile, we didn't have much room for heart to heart chats."

He looks disappointed by my answer. "That's a shame."

"Not really. I'm not even sure if you had a heart or if that's a new fixture." I smile at him, grab his hand and squeeze it so that he knows that I'm only playing around. He doesn’t seem to like my joke, as he looks like I just jabbed a knife into his back and twisted it. I squeeze his hand again and allow my features to soften into a wispy smile. “It doesn’t matter why you did any of that, you’re not that person anymore.”

He shakes his head indignantly. “No, it does, because no matter what I do I’m never going to live any of it down. I’m stuck with it forever. Ravi and Peyton, they both hate me and I mean, I know why they do, but I don’t know why I had to go and make them hate me.”

“Okay, Peyton certainly doesn’t hate you, and Ravi will come around eventually. If I could forgive you, anyone can.” I smile at him and sling my arm across his back, in the most buddy-buddy of fashions.

He nervously smiles back at me, his eyes telling me that he’s trying to stop being moody for my sake. “I missed this.”

I’m about to ask what he means by “this”, but then I realize that, _“I missed it too.”_

* * *

“I honestly can’t quite figure it out.”

“I had a vision of him on a yacht while I showering.”

“His?”

“Couldn’t tell.”

Riding the same brain as Ravi and Peyton is rather enjoyable. We’re currently trying to figure out what the mystery meat did for a living. So far all we know is that it made him extremely affluent.

The only bad part of this otherwise lovely evening, is that it’s nothing like old times.

I mean, okay yes they’re both zombies now and we’re in the midst of an apocalypse, but even if I look past that it still doesn’t give me any fuzzies of nostalgia. Peyton is sitting on Ravi’s lap and I’m the third wheel of a bike that has been riding along perfectly fine without me for months. Ok, that’s a lie. Major had already filled the position of third wheel long before I arrived, so I guess I’m the forth wheel? But Major is asleep at the moment, as is Blaine. _Humans_ , I swear. So here I am, third wheeling it hard.

Oh no. Peyton’s tongue is in Ravi’s mouth. This is making me uncomfortable. Why is this making me uncomfortable? What am I five years old?

I wonder if they even want me here. Maybe they liked having their own private little home with Major as their only third wheel and occasional bother.

So, Mr. Richy Rich was a negative nelly, it seems.

Their kissing progresses, and they seemingly abandon the conversation, _and me._

Peyton whispers something in Ravi’s ear before slowly climbing off of him and dropping onto the heels of her feet. She glances at me, a guilty smile tickling her lips. “Sorry, Liv. I think we’re going to try to get some sleep.”

 _Sure you are._ I smile back, nod, wave. “Alright, sleep tight.”

“Okay, love you, Liv,” Peyton whispers, still grinning as she grabs onto Ravi’s hand and they start to walk out of the moonlit living room and into the shadowy hallway.

“Love you too,” I whisper, even though I know that I’ve waited too long and they’ve likely slipped too far to hear my voice.

I sit alone on the upholstered lazy boy and stare out the window at the equally pretty little houses surrounding this one, and allow my bones to absorb the melancholy dipping its feet into my soul. I’ve felt like this before. Right after Blaine scratched me and I felt like I was nothing but a monster living in the midst of a sea of angels. Little by little I was able to gather life vests to keep me afloat. Ravi, Lowell, Major, Peyton, Clive, each subsequently becoming my preservers as their eyes were opened to the monster next to them and they loved her anyway.

I drag myself to my feet, turning my eyes from the silently still street. I trace Peyton’s path as I stumble down the pitch black hallway. My hand is resting on the doorknob leading to Blaine’s room before I’ve made up my mind whether to go inside or not. My hand decides for me as it twists the knob and quietly pushes the door open.

I can’t see a thing as I traipse towards the bed and I wind up banging my knee on the wooden frame. I bite my tongue to keep myself inaudible and wince in rapidly fading pain. A bite of euphoric nostalgia wrenches my heart and lifts it. We’re picking up the pieces. I drove a sledgehammer through this relationship a few days ago, but I’m going to sculpt it back together.

I’m drowning without it.

I slink into the bed like a cheating spouse, careful not to disturb him and alert him of my presence. I can’t see him, but at least I can feel the warmth of his body, something that so few bodies possess nowadays.

Maybe it’s time.

Maybe it’s time now to admit that I’m a liar.

All that I want from this world is his body near mine and if that isn’t love, then what is?

How much longer can I pretend that I don’t see it? That I don’t _feel_ it?

Not much longer.

Not much longer at all.

He’s my life vest.

* * *

There’s something on my head. I groan and try to swat it off, but it isn’t budging.

“Wake up, princess.” I flick my eyes open and find myself mildly disoriented and staring up at Blaine. Oh. I forgot that I fell asleep here. He pulls his hand off of my head and grins at me. “I’m genuinely shocked. Liv, has blessed me with her presence again, incredible. ”

I lazily sit up and comb my fingers through my nest-like hair. “Wow, you’re lucky,” I patronize.

His irises seem bluer than they have in some time, his teeth are pristinely white as he flashes another smiles at me, and he’s just really...beautiful. Good. I’m willing to admit that. That’s a step in the right direction.

“So are we good?” he asks, tilting his head to the side like a puppy-dog.

“Huh?”

“You know...you’re going to stop shunning me over the kissing thing?” He anxiously glances away as he says it and I think that my heart skips a beat, I mean more beats than it usually skips, that is. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve found his every gesture endearing, but being willing to admit that I’m finding his every gesture enduring, that’s another step.

“Oh, yeah, no. We’re great. Don’t worry about that.” I reach my hand out and run the back of it against his cheek, which seems to alarm him somehow.

He raises an eyebrow and keeps his head tilted. “Ok, I’m confused. Was your lunch yesterday Nicholas Sparks or something?”

Oh. Maybe, the brain did belong to a romantic. That would explain a lot, actually. A brooding brain with starry-eyes, can’t say that doesn’t fit the bill of the way I feel. I think I’m tumbling out of sleep and into a film.

“Probably,” I whisper. Even if I now know that I’m viewing him through someone else’s rose-tinted glasses, I still know that this love is my own. Nothing else matters. I gently grab his chin in my hands just to feel his soft skin against my palms, but once I’m holding his face in my grasp, I want more.

I hold his head in place as I bring mine towards it. His lips are so soft against mine, and this time around I don’t deny myself the heavenly pleasure of slipping my tongue between them. 

My cold, dead heart starts beating so much faster that I can almost hear it echoing around me. The heart wants what the heart wants, Olivia. And your heart, well it’s pretty mad at you for taking so long to follow it. How long has it yearned for this? How long has it wanted to belong to this beautiful man?

“Blaine,” I force myself to pull away from him for a moment, and claim my tongue back so that I’m able to speak. He looks so completely stunned, like he just saw an angel, and I have to consciously will myself to not go right back to kissing him. “I think that there’s a chance I might love you.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but his mouth drops open and his eyes widen tremendously. “Wait, what?”

I respond by wordlessly, tenaciously pressing my mouth back firmly against his. I feel his hand on my waist and I metamorphose into jelly. My heart wants more again, but I draw the line firmly in the sand. I don’t have a choice. I’m zombie Juliet, he’s my human Romeo, and that’s the way that it has to be. We both know this, but our tongues swirl and our skin brushes, as together we dangle precariously over a breathtaking edge.

My fingers fiddle with the hem of his shirt until I find myself carefully slipping it around his injured shoulder and up over his head. I rest my hand against his bare chest before I feel him sliding the sleeves of my tank-top down off of my shoulders. I take a moment to help him lift my shirt off and then push play on the kiss again.

I’m dizzy with passion and clothed in nothing but my bra and shorts when the bedroom door slams open and bangs against the wall.

I stiffen and brace myself for the inevitable barrage of targeted questions and accusations coming my way as I break away from Blaine’s lips and look towards the entryway.

I was right, it is Peyton, and she does indeed look very, very shocked. The anticipated barrage, however, does not strike me. “One of the zombies Ravi works with at the graveyard is on the porch waiting to be let in. So, Blaine, hide. I’m going to go get Major...” She shakes her head, looking appalled as she turns tail and walks out of the room.

Blaine glances at me nervously before scooting away and stepping off of the bed. I flash him a smile and hope that it’s a reassuring one. “It doesn’t matter how she feels about it,” I whisper, “It’s no one’s business but our own.” I can’t really say whether I’m trying to ease him or myself more. “Now come on,” I say, as I walk towards him and swiftly grab his hand, “Let’s go find a good hiding spot for you.”

“I love you,” he whispers, kissing the top of my head as we stride out the door together. You know what? No. Neither of us needs any assurance. Screw the world.

“I love you too.”

* * *

“Ravi, one of your neighbors reported seeing a living, breathing human enter your home; you know anything about that?” A girl, her long flowing platinum hair pulled into the stiffest of ponytails. She's wearing a thin white t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and clunky brown boots that go up to her knees. She’s also holding a rifle in her hands like it’s a plate of chocolate chip cookies that she’s brought for her new neighbors.

“I’m sorry, Linda, but I’m afraid I’m simply not hoarding any humans here, perhaps they mistook Oliva here,” Ravi gestures to me, “For a human? I mean, from a certain light she may...”

Linda’s eyes harden as she studies me from my face to my feet. She glances back at Ravi and sternly shakes her head. “No, they said it was a man. I’ve already heard plenty about your little guest here, she’s made quite a rustle with the boys who saw her down at the cemetery.” From her tone, I can tell that she’s a bit jealous of that “rustle” I made.

“That’s odd, because I’m the only man here,” Ravi says. I cringe, because his acting could use some work and I’m anxious to see how this will go down.

“Course’ you are,” Linda slurs, rolling her eyes. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to assist upon having a quick look around, anyway.”

“Go right ahead,” Peyton jumps in, “We’ve got nothing much to hide.” Except eleven carefully hidden human brains, two of which are still being used.

Linda nods her head and takes a step further inside away from the open front door. “Well, let’s just see about that. This house got a basement or attic?”

“No,” Ravi tells her, “It’s just this one level.”

Linda heads into the kitchen and starts opening the cabinets beneath the sink before progressing to rifling through our nearly empty kitchen cupboard. Right, that’s another thing we had to hide. We threw as much of the food as we could into bags and tucked them away where she, with any luck, will not find them, because having too much food on hand would definitely raise an eyebrow or two. She marches out of the kitchen looking considerably more frustrated and makes her way into Ravi and Peyton’s bedroom next. A glance under the bed and a peek in the closet before she moves on to Major’s room. Same deal: bed, closet, cleared. She then goes into the bathroom, tugs back the shower curtain, ducks down to inspect under the sink, and crosses it off her mental list as well. Next she opens the door to Blaine’s room. Thankfully we both got around to putting our tops back on, so there’s no evidence left of what just went down in here. Other than Peyton’s eye witness account, that is. Linda clues herself in on the fact that there’s no humans in here, sighs, and spins around to continue her search elsewhere. She reaches the final door of the narrow hallway, the bedroom that no one’s been using. The bedroom that’s supposed to be mine but will likely remain unused for all of eternity.

There’s no one under the bed or in the closet. She’s about to leave, having cleared the final room, I know that she is as she turns around and begins to walk away, but then she freezes and my heart stops. She glances up at the ceiling of the bedroom, analyzing the odd boxy white outline that juts out from the rest of the smooth surface. “That sure as hell looks like an attic.”

Peyton scoffs, crosses her arms over her chest, and shakes her head. “I guess you could call it that, but really it’s just a crawlspace too full of dust bunnies and spider webs to be used for much of anything.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty disgusting in there. I tried to clean it up when we moved in but then a platoon of eight-legged fiends came charging towards me and I was forced to abandon the task,” Ravi adds, his voice just a notch too tight and his eyes just wandering a smidge too much.

“I’m not an idiot, Ravi, I’m going up there.” She hops up onto the untouched bed with her dirty boots and pushes on the attic’s cover. It budges and she pushes it out of the way, shimmies herself up through it with pure arm strength.

“Shit!” I hear Blaine call out.

I spring into action, climb onto the bed and begin worming my way up and through the entry. A gunshot reverberates through the air around me just as I manage to poke my head through. I continue tugging my body through as I watch Linda stagger in pain as she presses a hand against her chest. “Bastard!” she shouts, swiping her hand out in front of her to try to force the gun away from Major. Her hand makes contact with his, red droplets of blood pool up on his knuckles. I gasp and another gunshot rings around us. Linda stays steady for a moment, before tumbling to the wooden floor with a bullet in her brain. Major drops Ravi’s revolver and cups his right hand over his left, his eyes widening and quivering as his eyebrows droop and his mouth cracks open. My feet finally make contact with the ground and I rush towards him, my own eyes just as wide and quivering.

_He’s going to die._

_Again._

_Armageddon’s a bitch._

* * *

 

**So I haven’t seen the season 3 premiere because my television decided to ironically start malfunctioning right when it was airing, so I guess I’ll watch it eventually...Anyway, thank you for reading, thank you for everything. Updates are likely going to continue to be slow, unfortunately. I might also have to go on hiatus after chapter 10 due to still be extremely behind schedule. Sorry about all that. I miss posting every Monday too, ah, those were the days.**

 

 

 

 

 

 


	8. A Decision

Déjà vu. Major lying sick in bed, thin strands of white streaking through his bright brown hair, resting my hand against his slightly sweaty back as I attempt to coax him into slurping up a bowl of soup because he’s refusing to follow his strict new diet regimen. Serious déjà vu.

“Someone’s going to come looking for her soon, I’m sure that the whole neighborhood knows that she came here and when she doesn’t show up at the cemetery for her next shift we’re doomed!” I hear Peyton scream from the hallway right outside of Major’s bedroom.

“So what do you suggest that we do!?” Ravi asks her.

“I don’t know! I refuse to leave our house over this, though. I love this house!”

“As do I!”

An average lovers’ spat. The only difference here being that they’re currently in the middle of trying to hide the corpse of a former member of the living dead that’s now, courtesy of Major, fully dead.

“Major, here. It won’t taste like much, but eat it anyway to try to get your strength back a little bit, okay?” I say, loud enough to drown out the screaming match going on in the hall. I attempt to force Major into a sitting position and try to hand him the soup, but he’s in a complete daze and isn’t complying whatsoever. I nearly spill the bowl’s contents all over him as I realize that his current behavior is hitting too close to home. If I didn’t know better I’d say that he’s having a vision, but he hasn’t eaten any brain matter yet so that can’t be the case. “Major?” I whisper, my voice shaking as my concern spikes.

He shakes his head and blinks rapidly a few times before a small smile peaks the corners of his lips. “Sorry, I just had like...I don’t know, a daydream?”

“What did you see?” I ask, leaning closer to him, my breath now very much bated.

He glances away from me while simultaneously reaching out to wrap his hand around mine. “Honestly? It was pretty much just a skewed version of reality. I must be pretty out of it.”

“Did you ask what the greater good for you was?” I mumble, barely able to force the words out of my mouth.

His eyes widen in astonishment as he nods his head. “Yeah, and you said “us”. That we could be together now...it was a memory wasn’t it?”

I freeze for a moment before finally willing myself to nod my head. “So...maybe you’re getting your memories back?”

“I didn’t want to get either of our hopes up by bringing up that possibility, but now that you’ve confirmed that what I just saw really did happen...” He smiles at me and squeezes my hand in his. “Maybe I am getting my memories back.”   

I can feel my eyes beginning to water and I set the soup down on the bedside table so that I can lay down next to him. “I really hope so, that would be incredible.”

He scoots closer to me and chances meeting my eyes again. “How do you think we can speed up the process?”

I have a lot of experience in trying to trigger visions and can’t help but feel a bit excited at the opportunity to use my amassed treasure trove of knowledge on the subject to assist Major. “Well I would say go places that you’ve been before, but that’s no really an option at the moment so...Do things you’ve done before, talk to people you’ve talked to before, guess we can put a checkmark on that one.”

“Do things I’ve done before?” he questions, brushing my messy mop of unwashed hair away from my face. He scoots ever-closer to me until our hipbones touch and he’s left gradually leaning his torso towards me. His lips are so familiar and as soft as ever. His lips pressed against mine for the briefest of moments and I feel like a girl again, eagerly gabbing to anyone who will listen about the handsome social worker who went down on one knee for her, and using any spare second she was given to stare down at the skinny band with tiny glittering diamonds on her left ring finger. His eyes are blank post-kiss and I know that we succeeded in drudging up old memories within him as well.

His eyes clear and he shoots me a nervous smile. “Sorry I just thought...”

I shake my head and work to intertwine his fingers with mine. “No, I get it. It’s fine.” I smile back at him. “What did you see?”

“Oh,” he whispers, breaking into a grin, “Just us making-out in an apartment, you were worried about turning me into a zombie, I think.”

“You think we could trigger a few more memories?” I whisper.

“How?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.

I bring our lips back together before quickly pulling away. “With a few more kisses.”

“Couldn’t hurt.”

* * *

Is it considered cheating if you have sex with your ex-fiancé behind the back of the man you’ve had a short but steamy make-out session with and have professed your love for exactly two times? Probably not, but I’m still going to tell Blaine we have no future before writing one with Major.

I slept in Major’s bed last night, so I’m pretty sure that Blaine already knows that something is up, there’s no way he doesn’t. He’s likely already pissed and ready to bite my head off, and I have to admit that as I raise my fist to knock on his bedroom door, I’m a tad scared of what’s waiting for me on the other side.

I rap my hand against the door, anyway, and after a few moments of uneasy silence, it swings open. “Liv,” Blaine whispers, moving aside to let me inside. “How’s Major? Have you gotten him to eat a brain yet?”

Not exactly what I expected, and I’m not sure whether I find it a relief or not. To be truthful, the fact that Blaine’s become amicable enough to pretend he’s concerned about Major’s wellbeing just makes me feel sick inside. This would be easier if he had just bit my head off like I expected him to.

“No, not yet, but he’s doing okay, I think.”

“You think? You were taking care of him all night, right?” He’s become a bit accusatory, raising an eyebrow as he stares at me quite intently, but he’s still extremely passive.

“Yeah, but we both fell asleep and he’s still asleep right now, so I’m not sure how he’s feeling today,” I reply, slowly sitting down on the bed.

He sits down next to me and turns so that he can preserve his highly dedicated eye-contact with me. “Oh. Well...Hey, you’re not mad at me about this are you?”

“Huh?”

“You’re acting standoffish. Is it because you think that I set this chain of events in motion or something? Like you’re mad at me because I’m the one who that zombie chick came over here to investigate but he’s the one that wound up getting scratched, so you blame me?” He shakes his head and sighs heavily. “It’s not my fault.”

“No, I know that!” I shout, setting my hand on his arm to set him at ease. “I’m not at all mad at you. I just...” I grit my teeth and sigh just as heavily. I have to do this. I have to do this. Liv, you have got to do this! “Major’s memories are starting to come back.”

“Whoa! What? You’re serious!?” His mouth falls open and his eyes widen dramatically. I nod my head and his astonishment seems to grow. “So if I got scratched I would...wow.”

“Yeah. Except for him this is a great thing, for you this would be an awful thing. Trust me.”

He grins at me and reaches for my hand. “No, I know that. I don’t want them back. Actually, the thought is sorta terrifying, because I know that if I started remembering all that shit again you’d start hating me again too.” He closes his eyes and starts to lean towards me and I rapidly lose my cool as I smack my hand against his chest far rougher than is warranted.

“I’m so sorry,” I immediately whisper, feeling my eyes beginning to water up again, this time for a completely different reason.

He jerks away from me, wincing in pain as he rises to his feet. “What the hell?”

“I didn’t mean to...It’s just that I came in here to tell you that I was wrong. I don’t...” No. I’m why am I phrasing it like this? I don’t want to finish that sentence. How dare I even start such a sentence?

“Love me?” he whispers, shaking his head in disbelief. “The day after, Liv!? Really!? You take it back the day after you said it, because your main squeeze remembers you again so you don’t need the replacement anymore?” He places his hands over his face and turns away from me.

“No, that’s not what I meant to say!” I shout, standing up and rushing towards him. “I do love you, but Major was my fiancé! We have years of history together! I can’t turn my back on that!”

“Screw you!” he screams, whipping around to face me again. His eyes are damp and he looks more furious than I’ve ever seen him. More furious than when I shot him and more furious than when I cured him. “For as long as I can remember, all that I’ve ever cared about is you, and here I thought that maybe you cared about me at least a little bit too, but you’ve jerked me around enough by now that I know better. So screw you! I’m done caring!”

“Blaine, please!” I shout, tears rolling down my cheeks as my breath hitches. “I know that I’m being an asshole! I know! I never, never meant to do this to you! I really do care about you, and I don’t want you to hate me!”

“Too damn bad. Telling me that you loved me made it so that you could only be my girlfriend or enemy from that moment on, and you took the path straight to being my enemy.”

“Your enemy?” I whisper, wiping at my cheeks as I work to pull myself back together. “Isn’t that a bit overdramatic?”

He mirrors me as he rubs at his cheeks, as well. “No,” he whispers back.

“Fine, after everything I’ve done you’re certainly entitled to your feelings, but I hope that one day you’ll grow up and be able to understand why I had to make this decision, because I will always greatly value our friendship.” I take a deep breath, and nod my head, finally feeling composed. I’m sure that he just needs a bit of time. He’s callous enough that he’ll probably get over this in the blink of an eye.

“Grow up?” He rolls his eyes and takes a step away from me again. “That’s really what you’re going to say to try to convince me to stay your friend? Well you know what, Liv? I really do hate you, actually, and I would appreciate it if you would just stay the hell out of my life as much as possible from this point on. Please and thank you.”

“No!” I shout, closing the distance between us again. “We were never going to work anyway, Blaine. You’re human, I’m a zombie. We both knew no matter how much we wanted it to, it wouldn’t last. I made the practical decision. You would have done the same!”

Tears trickle down his cheeks again, even as he desperately tries to hide them. “Shut up. You obviously know even less about me than I do, and that’s really saying something.” He laughs dryly and lets his head hang back so that he can stare up at the ceiling to avoid my eyes. “I thought we would work. I did. But that’s only because I’m a sucker, isn’t it? I bet former me would be ashamed of current me, and who could blame him?”

“You’re not a sucker, you’re a good person.”

“No point in being a good person if this is all I get for it.”

“So what? You want to start killing people again or something?”

“Mmm, maybe. I can think of one certain sleeping zombie whose skull I wouldn’t mind bashing in.”

“That’s not funny. Don’t ever say something like that again.”

“Why? You’ll stop wanting to be my friend? Oh, whatever would I do? I do value our friendship so very much, you know?” He forces a laugh again that quickly dissolves into hysterical sobs.

“Blaine,” I whisper, forgetting my anger as I wrap my arms around him.

I feel droplets of water on my forehead as he dizzily leans against me, drunk on his emotions. He cries on me for a solid minute before finally pushing me away and turning back around. “Get out,” he whispers, hardly intelligible.

This time I respect his wishes and leave the room without another word.

* * *

Major’s more than a little confused when he wakes up to me crying my eyes out. “What happened!?” he shouts, his alarm clear in his voice as he springs into a sitting position. He cautiously wipes my tears away with his thumb.

“I just...” I decide that this time I want to build a relationship founded on nothing but honesty. “I had a really bad fight with Blaine and I’m just so mad at myself for letting it play out the way that it did.”

“Did he threaten you? While I was asleep I dreamt of a lot of things, memories...and I dreamt of the moment that he stabbed me and I...”

I cut off his ranting by shaking my head and placing a finger against his smooth, soft lips. “He didn’t threaten me.” _He only threatened you._

“Good,” Major whispers, pulling me into a passionate kiss with those smooth, soft lips of his. “But I don’t think you should feel bad. From what I saw last night I just really think that you should stay away from that guy.”

“Yeah well, that’s what he thinks too.” I can’t stand thinking about what I’ve done to Blaine anymore, so I distract myself by giving in to the kiss. Major is the one I should focus on. Major is the one that I gave up Blaine for, so I might as well give myself to him. I tug his shirt off and he gazes at me, grinning and flabbergasted, before tugging mine off, as well.

* * *

“What did you wind up doing with Linda’s body?” I ask Peyton from across the dinner table. I steal a nibble off of Major’s plate o’ cerebral cortex.

She shoots an exasperated glance at Ravi before mumbling, “She’s in the attic. That room is officially closed to the public.”

“We couldn’t think of anything else to do with her,” Ravi adds, shrugging. “We couldn’t take the risk of bringing her outside to burn or bury lest someone spot us doing so.”

I nod my head and watch Major’s features contort as he takes his second bite of brain. “Understandable.” I look away from Major to flash Peyton a smile. “So...Major and I have some pretty great news.”

“I’m getting my memories back slowly but surely,” he informs them, so excited that he forgets his mouth is full of brain, so it’s admittedly revolting to see him speak.

Peyton and Ravi are too shocked to chide Major on his nasty lack of table etiquette. “Oh my gosh!” Peyton squeals, “That is great news! Wow!”

“And in addition to that, we’ve gotten back together,” I inform her, my voice even as I hope she’ll pick up on the connotation. I need her to take note of the unspoken, _“Blaine and I are not together.”_

“Oh my gosh!” she shouts again, clapping her hands together. “Yes! I’m so happy for the two of you!” Her exuberant glee makes me feel nearly certain that she understands what I’m getting at, and is more than relieved by it.

“And you can have sex!” Ravi cheers, void of any and all tact, as per usual.

“Already did,” Major mumbles, grinning.

Ravi brings his hand up and Major high-fives him. Peyton rolls her eyes and I can’t help but burst out laughing. Now this, this is the nostalgia that I’ve been searching for. So much for third-wheeling it. This four-wheeler is running as smoothly as it did in its prime.

* * *

“The door is locked, it’s been locked for two days. I haven’t been human for a while now, but I think I remember something about them needing food and water more frequently than this.” Peyton wistfully stares at the door, as if hoping that she can burn a hole through it with her nonexistent laser vision.

“I know,” I mutter, leaning my back against the hallway’s pale yellow wall and sighing. “But I’ve tried everything to get him to open that door and he won’t. What are we supposed to do? Knock it down?”

“Maybe,” Peyton says, sounding completely serious as she says it. “It’s not healthy for him to act like this, he’s dehydrating himself.”

“He’s fine.” Ravi smiles at us, walking towards us from the direction of the kitchen. “I heard a noise in the hallway last night, I didn’t think much of it but I checked just now and quite a few bottles of water and boxes of food are missing.”

I can’t help but sigh in relief. “Good. I’m glad he’s not that stupid.”

Ravi grins and nods his head. “It’d be too bad if one of the last remaining humans died of a broken heart.”

I playfully punch him, not at all amused, but too embarrassed to let him know that he’s words sting. My extraordinarily short-lived relationship with Blaine has become common knowledge due to me being unable to come up with any other excuses for his sudden hermitism.

Peyton bites her lip, wrapping her arm behind Ravi to reach up and rub at his shoulder. “Still though, that room has a window and the fact that he’s been so quiet...You don’t think he took that food and went through it?”

I gasp and rush towards the door, frantically kicking my foot against it. “Why didn’t you present that possibility sooner?” Ravi asks, also seeming quite concerned.

She shrugs her shoulder, and rests her head against his side. “Sorry, just thought of it.”

“Blaine, say something!” I shout. I’m met with nothing but familiar silence. I feel my eyes turn red as I kick my foot against the door until I bust through it.

Blaine gasps frantically zipping up his pants and slamming the closet door. “Shit!” he shouts, glaring at me.

“What?” I mumble, wishing I could un-see whatever the hell that was.

“I was peeing in the closet! What of it!?”

So that’s why this room smells so much like a Porta-Potty. “Oh,” I whisper, feeling a smile ghost my lips. I feel my complexion and eyes return to normal as I calm down upon realizing that he has, in fact, not gone AWOL. “Well, we aren’t going to repair your door, so you might as well start peeing in the bathroom like everyone else again.”

“Whatever,” he mumbles, frowning as he gazes upon the giant gaping hole in his door. “Thanks for that, by the way. Love what you’ve done with the place. Now I don’t even have privacy, lovely. Maybe I’ll move to the room down the hall.”

“You could, but there’s a corpse in the attic above it and it’s starting to smell.”

“Who cares? In case you couldn’t tell, so is this one.”

I can’t help but laugh as I nod my head and say, “Fair enough.” I pause and take a step towards him. “I’ve missed you. I’m glad that you’re okay. You were starting to worry me.”

“Oh was I? So very sorry; that wasn’t my intention at all.” His tone is incredibly sarcastic, making it clear that it was, in fact, his intention and he’s quite pleased with himself.

I don’t bother with lecturing him for his stupid behavior, because the last thing I want to do is try to pick a fight with him. I’ve missed talking to him, not screaming at him. “Have these two days of solitude also allowed you to cool off enough to forgive me a little?” I risk asking him, being sure to make my voice as soft and gentle as possible.

He shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Living is a formality.”

“Huh?”

“It just is.”

“What is that even supposed to mean?”

“You can only be angry for so long, is what I mean. So now I’m just, numb. Nothing matters. And I think that’s great.”

“Something will matter to you again,” I whisper, smiling at him, “I promise.”

“Too bad. I wish it wouldn’t. That thing will probably just leave me so that it can throw itself on its ex.”

“Oh come on,” I mumble, “We were only together for one day!”

“You might have only loved me for one day, but as I’ve stated, I don’t know, half a dozen times now, you’re the only thing that I have ever cared about. One day to you is the entirety of my love life! As far as my memories are concerned, I’m a virgin!”

“Well I wasn’t going to be able to change that, anyway.”

“It was never about that,” he mumbles, shaking his head. “Kissing was enough, words were enough.”

“I didn’t come back in here to resume our break-up fight, Blaine.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have come in here, because I’m finding it difficult to move past it.”

“Liv!?” Major pokes his head in through the hole, wrinkling his nose as he catches a whiff of the room.

“Oh piss off!” Blaine shouts, his expression a cocktail of intense resentment with a splash of shame.

“Liv, come out here. You’re wasting your time.”

Blaine bites his lip and slowly makes his way over to the door. I know that if he were a zombie he’d be in full-on mode, and I can’t help but feel tense. He rapidly takes hold of Major’s chin in his left hand and flings his head upwards until it bangs against the sharp wooden shards of the door.

I scream and rush towards him, but Major is through the door, his hand roughly gripping Blaine’s injured shoulder before I’ve even reached the doorway. Blaine starts screaming in pain, and buckles to the floor as he weakly attempts to pry Major off of him. I stand motionless above them as they take the fight to the ground. He takes his hand off of Blaine’s shoulder and takes to outright hurling heavy punches at his head. Blaine’s nose starts aggressively spewing out blood, his eye starts to swell up, and he spits up a bloody tooth, before I finally will myself to get moving. “Major stop!” I shout, grabbing at the sleeve of his shirt to try to get him to notice my protests.

He glances over his shoulder at me, eyes red, veins popping, and finally freezes. “Liv, he smashed my head against the door!” he shouts, already trying to make a case for himself.

I push him away from Blaine, not sure what to make of the nightmarish scene that I just let play out before me. The top of Major’s head is caked with a thin layer of dried blood, but it’s nothing compared to the puddle of crimson coating Blaine’s face. Blaine takes in a deep breath before trying and failing to lift his head up off of the ground. “Just roll over so that you don’t choke on your blood,” I whisper, helping him move onto his side. His face is such a mess that I can barely stand to look at it. His nose is obviously broken, and his left eye is so puffy and purple that he can’t open it, and since his mouth is closed, I still have yet to see which teeth he just lost. I gingerly rest my hand on his back before forcing myself to my feet and into the bathroom. I find the emergency aid kit and quickly bring it back into the room with me. Major has taken to sitting on the bed, his face in his hands, peeking through his fingers to stare at Blaine.

I kneel back on the ground and open up the kit, first bandaging his steadily bleeding nose. We don’t have any ice, so I resort to giving him as much pain reliever as I can permit. He almost chokes on the water that I coax him into drinking so that he can swallow the pills. When he opens his mouth to accept the medication I take note of a missing canine and a missing front tooth on the bottom. He’s _really_ not going to like that. “Liv, I didn’t mean to go this far, I just...” Major mumbles from his place on the bed.

I shake my head, gently rubbing at Blaine’s back with my hand again. “I know,” I whisper, sparing him a glance. “I get it. He attacked you first, but it’s just...he’s human, Major, and you aren’t anymore. You don’t know your own strength yet, so you lost it and went overboard.”

Major nods in agreeance. “Yeah, you’re right.”

I finish tending to Blaine’s face and suddenly remember it wasn’t the only place Major harmed him. I tear Blaine’s shirt off of him in order to get a good look at his shoulder. The injury wasn’t anywhere near healed, but now it’s bruised and red again. I turn around to glare at Major, unable to contain myself for a moment as I shout, “Don’t you dare touch his shoulder ever again, though! That’s inexcusable.”

“What?” Major questions, seemingly caught off guard by my outburst.

“You could’ve just made it worse than it already is, and I’m not sure if you’re aware, but it’s already never going to heal! So the next time you retaliate, just please leave his shoulder alone. It’s my fault that he can’t use his arm in the first place.”

“It’s not your fault...” Major mumbles.

I don’t bother saying anything else to him. I simply allow my eyes to drift back to Blaine, who is thankfully still conscious, but also in too much pain to add anything to the conversation. “I’m sorry,” I whisper right into his ear, taking precautions to make sure that Major can’t hear me.

_“I can think of one certain sleeping zombie whose skull I wouldn’t mind bashing in.”_

No, he didn’t mean that. He’s not that person anymore. He wasn’t trying to kill Major, there’s just no way that he was. Honestly, I’m every bit as concerned that Major is more than willing to kill Blaine. I can’t let this sort of thing happen ever again, because I don’t know how it would have ended if I had allowed it to escalate any further.

* * *

**Thank you so much for the comments that I've gotten on the last chapter, you're all so sweet.**

 


	9. A Ruse

“How’re you feeling?”

“Disgusting.”

“Not what I meant.”

“I don’t ever want to see a mirror again.”

“It will all heal, don’t worry about the state of your face. You’ll be as handsome as ever soon.”

“Teeth don’t grow back.”

“So just smile with your mouth closed for any future family photos.”

A small smiles tugs at the corners of his lips even as he tries to resist it. He pats the spot on the bed next to him, and I abandon my post at the doorway to march into the room and obey his beckoning. The bedroom smells like the rotting flesh above it, but it’s still preferable to his former living quarters, which still smells like urine, feces, and blood. “I’m sorry about trying to assassinate your asshole of a fiancé,” he mumbles.

I stop a step away from the bed, to nervously rub at my arm and chew at my bottom lip. “You weren’t seriously trying to kill him, right?” I’ve been dying to ask this question, and am glad that that he’s given me the perfect opening.

He shakes his head. “You kidding? I knew that I wouldn’t be able to put a dent on him.”

“Ok, but if you could have killed him, would you have?” I know that my voice is shaking, but I’m proud of myself for even managing to spit that sentence out.

He nods his head. “Probably.”

“Blaine!” I shout, in disbelief.

“I’m a murderer, don’t act like you don’t know that.” He grins at me before shaking his head and patting the spot again. “No, Liv. I wouldn’t have killed him, I would have just beat him within an inch of his life like he did to me. I don’t want to kill anyone else.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, rewarding him by taking a seat. “I don’t want you to kill anyone else, either. Now if you would get around to answering my original question, how much pain are you in?”

He smiles as he says, “Kind of a lot. My shoulder is excruciating and I still can’t open my eye.”

“I really am so sorry about your shoulder.”

“Thank you, by the way. I enjoyed watching you bite his ear off over it.”

“I don’t like seeing you in pain,” I whisper back, smiling at him. “And I still feel terrible about getting you shot.”

“Honestly, I’d rather you feel terrible about breaking my heart, but I guess I’ll take what I can get,” he mumbles, staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling.

“I do feel terrible about that too,” I quickly reply, setting my hand on top of his. “I don’t like seeing you in emotional pain, either. I swear that I...” My vision blurs, and I realize that I’m right there on the brink of crying again. Nowadays I’m close to sobbing more often than not. “I’m so sick of ruining things between us. I don’t want to lose you, I really don’t.”

He gives my hand a small squeeze before glancing away from the blank white ceiling to meet my eyes. “I’m not dying, you know.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Well what do you want me to say then, Liv?”

“Maybe that you forgive me? That we can still be friends?” My pitch is a smidge too high, and I wonder if he takes note of the not-so-discrete desperation in my voice.

“I don’t forgive you.” He falls silent and a thick web of tension extends between us, before he finally sighs and whispers, “But yeah, we can still be friends. If I forbade you from being my friend, then I wouldn’t have any.”

I find myself wondering how he’s come to have the distinctive ability to twist my heart strings until I fear they will snap right out my chest. “That’s not fair,” I mutter, my eyebrows growing closer together as my frustration rises. “I forgave you. You killed my boyfriend and I still forgave you.”

He smirks at me and sighs once more. “You drive a hard bargain, I guess that I will have to forgive you, after all.”

I smile back and scoot closer to him on the bed. “Good. You’d better stop trying to avoid me now, then.”

“You know...I might just keep avoiding you, because this here, this is torture.”

“Huh? We’re just having a civil conversation.”

“Right, but you’re still just so blindingly gorgeous and I...just can’t stop myself from wanting to kiss you. You think that I can just turn some lever and want nothing more than to be your friend, but I can’t.” He takes his hand out from under mine and looks back up towards the heavens.

I’m speechless, really. I think I better understand now why he’s been so out of his mind for the last couple of days. He is undoubtedly in love with me and I helped to fertilize and water that love, but now I’m suddenly asking him to smother it to death and pretend that it never existed. I guess I figured that since I’ve been able to channel my love for him into the platonic sort, he would be able to do so, as well. Guess I figured wrong.

“So...you need more time?” I whisper, hoping that that’s all he needs. Hoping that he won’t outright retract his promise that we can remain friends.

“No. I’m fine. I just wanted to make sure that you understood that, so that if I accidentally kiss you, you’ll know why.”

“Haha, very funny.”

* * *

“So how is he?”

“As if you really care.” I run the brush through my hair one more time as I watch Major lying on the bed behind me, via the mirror hung up on the closet door of our joint bedroom. His face is as void of expression as his words, which is why I’ve grown a tad accusatory.

“I really do. How is he?” he questions, sitting up as though improving his posture will serve to demonstrate his sincerity.

“Alright, I think. He said that he’s sorry about attacking you,” I answer, setting the brush down on the dresser that’s kitty-corner to the closet. I turn around to face him and begin slowly walking towards the bed.

“He did?”

“Yes.” I bend over and quickly peck my lips against Major’s before settling down next to him. “You should apologize to him, too...”

He raises an eyebrow at me before biting his bottom lip and moving his jaw to the side, obviously irritated by my request. “I should apologize to him?” he parrots.

“Yes,” I repeat. “I know that he started it, but you barely got a scratch and he’s a mess.”

“Fair enough, but I think you’re forgetting that he stabbed me to death...but I guess that doesn’t count for much in your mind anymore.”

“You guess right,” I mumble, trying to be as inaudible as possible. “Major, I’m not asking for much here, just apologize, it won’t kill you,” I say; speaking louder this time around since I want him to actually hear me.

“But he might,” Major mutters, his tone harsher than I’m comfortable with.

“He won’t!” I snap back. “You have a few flashbacks with him in them and suddenly you think you know him!? How many times must I drill it into your head that he’s not the person from your memories anymore?”

“He was trying to kill me, Liv.”

“He said that he wasn’t.”

“He was lying. You trust him way too much, Liv. Open your eyes! He hasn’t changed nearly as much as you think he has, he’s just putting on a front.”

“Major, stop. Stop trying to turn me against him, it’s obnoxious.”

“So now I’m obnoxious?”

“No, not usually, but at the moment, I’m inclined to say yes.”

“Liv, what would you do if I said that it was him or me?”

I feel anger swelling up within me, so much so that I have to take several meditative breaths before speaking, in order to keep my eyes nice and hazel-y. “I’d say that you must have eaten a narcissist for lunch yesterday.”

He takes a few deep breaths himself before whispering, “Maybe I did, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want an answer.”

“Well, I’m not going to give you one! You’re being ridiculous.”

“Liv, come on, it’s just hypothetical. It’s not like I’d really expect you to kick him out or something.”

“Of course I’d choose you, Major. You’re the one I’m in love with and you know that, so quit trying to manipulate me into saying things that I don’t want to say.”

“I’m not trying to manipulate you, I just asked a question,” he replies, scooting closer to me so that he can press his lips back against mine and coax his tongue into my mouth.

* * *

Brains are on the menu for breakfast today, finally. I pour a quarter of a bottle of cheap Tabasco on the very brain that’s making Major act so self-important and immediately regret it. I should have chosen a different brain, but then again it has to get eaten eventually and it’s better that I take one for the team than let Ravi and Peyton unknowingly devour it, and wind up putting strain on their relationship because of it. There’s already strain on my relationship with Major, so what’s a little more?

My hankering for brains woke me up before everyone else today, so I’m currently sitting at the kitchen table alone, eating my drearily nasty meal.

I take a few bites and find that I can’t stand the silence anymore. I want to have someone to talk to, and since I know that in his current state Major would likely resent me if I woke him up, I opt for Blaine. Besides, I’m in the mood to badmouth Major, and who better to whine to about my boyfriend to than my ex?

I abandon my predominantly full plate, walk to the end of the long hallway, burst into his new bedroom, rowdily plop down on the edge of his bed, and poke his leg until he comes to. “What is it, Liv?” he asks, his voice portraying a cross between disgruntlement and drowsiness.

“Come into the kitchen with me.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to eat with you,” I say, standing up and walking backwards towards the door.

He looks extremely confused as he sits up and yawns. “Is Major in there?”

I shake my head. “No, he’s asleep.”

“Yeah, so was I,” he murmurs, begrudgingly standing up to trail after me.

“Yes, but you’re currently far more amicable than Major.”

“Oh, am I?”

“Only because of the brain that Major ate, but he’s so self-absorbed right now that it’s driving me crazy.”

“Breaking up already?”

“You wish.”

“Sounds like you’re a bit self-absorbed yourself. Don’t assume that I’d take you back, Olivia,” he mumbles, grinning at me.

“Well I am currently in the process of eating my share of egocentric cerebellum, so I can’t help it. We both already know you would happily be my rebound, though.”

He freezes halfway into the kitchen and shakes his head, his smile faltering. “Seriously? Wow. Did you wake me up just so that you could be a complete and utter asshole to me?”

I roll my eyes; it’s unlike him to be unable to take a joke. “Blaine, I was just kidding, now hurry up and grab some food and sit down.” I take my place back at the dining table in front of the spicy, smelly brain.

“I would not be your rebound.”

“Ok, sure. Sorry that I damaged your pride.” He sighs and sits down across from me without another word. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I’m not in the mood,” he answers whilst glaring at me.

“Suit yourself.” I resume eating and he just sits and sullenly stares down at the wooden tabletop. “So last night Major was being obnoxious and saying that I trust you too much and stuff,” I say, trying to lure him into serving the purpose that I brought him here to serve, and start slicing through the silence with me. “He did that whole “it’s him or me” thing.”

“And you said?”

“Well it was hypothetical, so...Ugh, but how entitled is he that he thinks he could ask me to make a decision like that?”

“Pretty entitled.” I glance up and feel a thick layer of self-deprecation rain down upon me as I see Major standing at the edge of the hallway, eyebrows raised. “It’s so nice how you talk about me behind my back to Blaine, I’m so glad that you two are such good friends.”

Blaine raises his hand into the air out in front of him, in mock-surrender. “This isn’t even remotely on me. I don’t want to be in the middle of this.”

“Sure you don’t,” Major mumbles, rolling his eyes. “You’re always so innocent, aren’t you? You can’t ever own up to anything.”

“I never said that. I just meant that, this time it’s all on...” He looks at me, his eyes softening before he reluctantly closes his mouth.

“No, I’ll admit it,” I say, trying to pick up where he left off. “I woke him up because I wanted someone to talk to and you’re too hostile to put up with at the moment.”

“Liv, I’m just trying to deal with having to share you with your ex all the time.”

“We made-out once, even calling him my ex is really a bit of a stretch. We’re just friends, you have nothing to be so jealous over.” I finish chewing my last bite of brain and casually stroll over to him. He wraps his arms around me and I stand up on my tiptoes to give him a kiss. “Let’s both just fight the urge to be selfish jerks together, okay? I believe in us.”

He laughs and nods his head. “Okay, I’ll do my best. I believe in us, too.”

When I pull away and walk back into the kitchen to scrub my plate clean, I force myself to avoid looking at Blaine. I don’t have to see his face to know how dejected he is. I feel guilty, but not nearly as guilty as I would feel if I didn’t currently consider myself to be the most important person in the universe. I walk back into the hallway, take Major by the hand, and lead him into our bedroom for a bit of privacy.

* * *

“I was thinking we could play Apples to Apples.”

“You own it?”

“Yes we do! We actually have quite an impressive board game collection by post-apocalyptic standards,” Ravi answers, smiling from ear to ear as he sits down next to Peyton on the loveseat across from the couch that Major and I are sitting on together.

“Sure, I’m game,” Major says, winking.

Ravi briefly chuckles before hesitantly asking, “Should we invite B...”

“No, Major and him still can’t handle being in the same room,” I interject.

“No, go ahead. I can handle it,” Major whispers, smiling as he leans closer to me.

“You sure?” He nods and I rise to my feet. “Okay, then...”

A sharp, intrusive knock on the front door halts me. I spin around, abandoning my trek down the hallway in favor of raising an eyebrow and curiously staring at the door. Ravi stands up and peeks through the peep hole. “Zombie neighbors,” he whispers, uneasily running his fingers through his hair. “I’m sure everyone is starting to wonder what became of Linda...”

“If they come in and start poking around they will smell her reeking corpse from a mile away, and where are we supposed to hide Blaine?” I whisper back, finding that I’ve also begun running my fingers through my hair just as uneasily.

“I’m not sure, but it’s not like we can just keep the door shut and pretend that they’re solicitors that will soon go away if we leave them waiting long enough,” Ravi says, shrugging his shoulders.

“Do we have any ketchup?” Major mumbles from his place on the couch.

“What!?” I whisper-shout, placing my hands upon my hips. “We’re in the middle of a crisis and you’re asking about condiments?”

“What if we made Blaine up to look dead? Then we wouldn’t have to hide him, because it’d make sense for a bunch of zombies to have a freshly killed human whose brain they were just about to dig into before they had to go answer the door, and it would also explain why our house smells faintly of rotting flesh.”

I can’t help but allow my eyes to widen and my head to nod as I commend him for his savviness. “Only one problem,” I mumble, “Ketchup doesn’t really look much like blood and it doesn’t smell anything like it at all...It smells like ketchup.” I fall silent for a moment as I wander into the kitchen and over towards the cupboard. “Does anyone know if we have corn syrup and food coloring?”

“Highly doubt it, food coloring has no application in a zombie apocalypse,” Ravi answers, walking into the kitchen after me.

“What about cocoa powder?”

“No one here is a baker, Liv.”

“Oh, come on, work with me, Ravi! We have to have something!”

“Ketchup.”

“But it has to be convincing! If they don’t buy into it then Blaine will definitely be killed, and I’ve worked too hard to prevent that from happening to give up now.”

“We could use real blood.”

“I don’t want to hurt him over this, Ravi!”

“We could use a bit of our blood, a few cuts wouldn’t harm us any.”

“No, that’s too dangerous, he could accidentally swallow some or something.”

“True, but real blood is the most convincing blood of all.”

“Open up, we know you’re in there!” one of our unwanted visitors shouts from the front porch.

“Crap,” I mutter, pulling the cupboard door open and frantically rifling through it. I grab a bottle of water, a jug of ketchup, and a small bowl before rushing off to Blaine’s bedroom. I throw the door open and hurry to his side, already working on peeling the protective covering off of the top of the ketchup bottle. “Blaine, there are zombies outside, we’re going to cover you with ketchup and you need to play dead, okay?”

“Wait, what?” I begin pouring ketchup into the bowl and douse water on top of it to make it slightly less thick and a bit more reminiscent of actual blood. Once I’ve achieved a decent enough ratio of blood to water I tip the bowl onto Blaine’s shirt. He flinches and looks at me in shock. “What!?” he repeats.

”Blaine, trust me, this is the best we can do.”

“What is me playing dead going to accomplish exactly?”

“Corpses are a normal sight in our modern world, yes? Live humans? Not so much. You’ll stand out much less if you’re dead, so just work with me and get down on the floor, wait actually, no just lay down.” He stares at me blankly for a moment more before adhering to my word and putting his head down on the mattress. I glance down at him and grin. “At least you’re so beaten up that you look about half-dead.”

“Oh, goody.”

“Oh, Margo! Richard!” Ravi booms from the living room. “It’s lovely to see you! What brings you to our humble abode?”

“A search group for Linda was just put together and we were asked to come in here and poke around, sorry about this Ravi,” one of the mystery visitors, presumably Richard, says.

“A search group? Oh wow, Linda is missing? I feel bad for not helping out,” I hear Peyton chime in.

“Apparently she came here to check out a report of you guys safeguarding a human or something crazy before she disappeared, you know anything about that?” the other stranger, presumably Margo, asks.

“Yes, she did come over and we introduced her to Major here, an old friend of ours who at the time was just in the first stages of metamorphosing into one of the undead and could easily be mistaken for a human and then she left. I had no clue that she went missing after that,” Ravi tells them, his voice higher pitched than usual, making it more than obvious to anyone that knows him well that he’s spouting out bullshit, but hopefully Margo and Richard don’t know him well enough to recognize the uncommon frequency.

“Oh really, well welcome to the league of the undead, Major!” A pause. “Now if you don’t mind, we’re going to just have a little looksee.”

“Feel free.”

“Close your eyes, hold your breath, and keep very, very still,” I whisper into Blaine’s ear.

Several painfully pregnant minutes pass by before the door finally swings open. My hands are covered in “Blaine’s blood” and I’m resting my hands on his head, as if waiting to rip it open. I glance up and do my best to act shocked as I lock eyes with Margo. “Oh!” I call out. “I didn’t know we had guests, Ravi...”

“Oh whoops, sorry. I should have told you, Liv.”

“Yeah, you really should have,” I mumble, attempting to sound as annoyed as possible. It’s extremely difficult to keep my voice from shaking as I feel Blaine’s forehead begin to moisten with sweat. Man, it must be hard for him to have to fear for his life this often. As it is, he’s doing a fairly good job being a cadaver, though. He’s surprisingly skilled at keeping still.

“Margo, Richard, this is another one of our old friends who just arrived in town, she’s Major’s girlfriend. She has a nasty habit of harvesting bodies rather just brains, it’s rather distasteful if you ask me, but I think she has necrophilia or something, so to each their own, I suppose,” Ravi says, shaking his head in disgust.

“I don’t have necrophilia,” I say, rolling my eyes as I force myself to smile at the zombie duet. “I just think that brains taste fresher right out of the skull, so there’s no point in taking them out before you’re ready to eat, right?”

They both look suitably weirded out as they politely nod their heads and smile back at me. “Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea actually!” Margo says, refusing to make eye contact with me.

“Um...well, Ravi, Peyton, I think that you’re clear,” Richard says, laughing. “I didn’t see Linda anywhere, I’ll tell the others of your innocence, so don’t worry about anyone else coming around a disrupting your life.”

Ravi holds out his hand and they shake. “Thank you so much, I appreciate it that. Good luck in finding her, if you need any help just tell us.”

“Will do. See you around. It was nice meeting you Major...Liv,” Richard says, nodding his head at the two of us.

“Nice meeting you, too!” I call as him and Margo begin walking back down the hallway. Ravi, Major, and Peyton all follow after them to guide them back to the entrance. Soon enough I hear the front door slam and Blaine takes a deep breath, his body beginning to shake.

“That was terrifying,” he whispers, sitting back up.

“You did a great job, though.” I wrap my arms loosely around his neck, and rest my head on his uninjured shoulder.

“Liv, aren’t you getting sick of fighting against the inevitable?” he whispers, gently placing his head on top of mine. “One of these times you aren’t going to be able to come to my rescue.”

“I’ll always come to your rescue, Blaine.”

“When I die, just remember that you did your best.”

“Stop that, why must you be so gloomy and pessimistic lately? You just cheated death again, that’s something to be happy about, stop moping.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Oh hey, speaking of being happy, we were all about to have a board game night, you want in?”

He takes his head off of mine and shakes it back and forth. “Nah, I’m going to go clean this ketchup off of me and then go to sleep.”

“Wow, you’re a party pooper.”

“Really I just don’t want to have to deal with Major.”

“I’m aware. You’ll need to get over that eventually, we’re all stuck together. He’s going to make an effort to be pleasanter to you from now on, so give him another shot.”

“Eventually,” he mumbles, standing up and walking to his closet to select a clean shirt.

“Fine, have it your way,” I reply. I get up off of the bed, grab the ketchup, water, and bowl again, and walk to the door. I smile over my shoulder at him one more time. “Sleep tight, Blaine.”

“Alright. Night’, Liv,” he says, his lips curved upwards with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

 

* * *

**Phew, settle in for a long author's note.**

**So, obviously, I suck.**

**I wrote this chapter like...last year? I think. But I haven't posted it because I don't like it, and I also haven't posted the chapter after it because I also don't like it, and I stopped working on this story altogether because I just started to feel like it was generally becoming a big ole' mess.**

**So I started working on something else (a fic for How I Met Your Mother), which I'm about 7,000 words away from being done with right now. As I'm approaching the end of that project I've started thinking about what to do next, and now I suddenly feel extremely guilty for never finishing this, because I know that some of you were enjoying it. So I figure, it's better to post the trash that I'm mildly ashamed of than to just abandon this story altogether.**

**Whether or not I continue this and give it a proper ending remains to be seen. Right now I'm going to finish my other fic, because I feel like it's a lot better than this one, and thus, it's my priority, but once I'm completely done with it I'll try to come back and continue this one if anyone is still interested in me doing so. For now, I have one more chapter of this ready to be posted, though.**

**Anyway, my point is, I'm really sorry that I've put this off for so long and I'm sorry that I haven't been working on it at all. Hopefully that will eventually change.**

**Thank you.**

 

 

 

 


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